Bullet 3 - Wetlands resources

- Size
- Category
- Use
- Status
- Threats and opportunity
- Resources
- Functions
- Distribution
- Management
- Pollution

Bullet 4 Freshwater resources

Size
Category
Use
Status
Threats and opportunities
Resources
function
Distribution
Management
Pollution

Wet Lands:- Areas of marsh, fen, peat and, or water, whether natural or artificial, permanent or
temporary, with water that is static or flowing, fresh, brackish or salt including areas of marine
water less than six meters deep at low tide
Why Are Wetlands Important?

Wetlands are important for so many reasons:

The Role of Wetlands in an Ecosystem

Wetlands prevent flooding by holding water much like a sponge. By doing so, wetlands help keep river levels normal and
filter and purify the surface water.

Wetlands accept water during storms and whenever water levels are high. When water levels are low, wetlands slowly release
water.

Wetlands also release vegetative matter into rivers, which helps feed fish in the rivers. Wetlands help to counter balance the
human effect on rivers by rejuvenating them and surrounding ecosystems.
Many animals that live in other habitats use wetlands for migration or reproduction. For example, herons nest in large old
trees, but need shallow areas in order to wade for fish and aquatic life. Amphibians often forage in upland areas but return to
the water to mate and reproduce.

While wetlands are truly unique, they must not be thought of as isolated and independent habitat. To the contrary, wetlands
are vital to the health of all other biomes and to wildlife and humans everywhere.

Unlike most other habitats, wetlands directly improve other ecosystems. Because of its many cleansing benefits, wetlands
have been compared to kidneys. The analogy is good one. Wetlands and kidneys both help control water flow and cleanse the
system.

Erosion Control

Looking at pictures of deltas, one can tell that rivers deposit a lot of sediment into the ocean. The sediment is from top soil
that has been eroded and washed away.

Emergent’s (plants firmly rooted in the muddy bottom but with stalks that rise high above the water surface) are able to
radically slow the flow of water. As a result, they counter the erosive forces of moving water along lakes and rivers, and in
rolling agricultural landscapes. Erosion control efforts in aquatic areas often include the planting of wetlands plants.

Wetlands and Water Purification

Wetlands also clean the water by filtering out sedimentation, decomposing vegetative matter and converting chemicals into
useable form.

The ability of wetlands to recycle nutrients makes them critical in the overall functioning of earth. No other ecosystem is as
productive, or as unique in this conversion process. In some places artificial wetlands were developed solely for the purpose
of water purification.

1. Water Resources sector

Ethiopia is endowed with substantial water resources such as surface and ground water. The country is known by
its “water tower” of Northeast Africa (Abebe, 2001). According to the study by UNEP (2006), Ethiopia has a
potential of harvesting rainwater that is equivalent to the population needs of over 520 million people. Based on
the IWMI Paper by Awulachew et al. (2007), the country is gifted with 12 river basins that have an annual runoff
volume of 122 billion m3 of water and an estimated 2.6 to 6.5 billion cubic meter of ground water potential. This is
relatively large volume that is estimated to be an average of 1575 cubic meter of physically available water per
person per year.
Tigray is endowed with high water resource potential and big rivers like Mereb and Tekeze, which bounds the
northern and western parts of the region, and several other rivers and springs (Table 1). Tekeze River is the
highest in its discharge rate potential of the specific runoff, which is 301mm/year (co water International Inc.,
2003). About 43mm/year of specific runoff is the water resource potential of Mereb basin. The water resource
potential of the Afar basin is 74mm/year

The Tekeze basin covers an area of 40,162 km2 or 73.6% of the region. Afar also covers 7,706 km2 or 14.1% and
Mereb 6,704 km2 or 12.3% of the region. Therefore the Tekeze basin drains most of the Tigray area. Excluding its
tributaries, the Tekeze River has about 400km length within Tigray.

This river course is very rugged and suitable for hydroelectric generation at large scale. The Tekeze basin even in
Tigray has many tributaries; Tsirare, Zamira, Giba, Weri, Zarema, Duqdiqo and Rawyan watersheds. In the Mereb
basin there are relatively short and dry watersheds like Belesa, Inguya Hamedo group and Widakh. In this case
the Maishugala, Agu, Dayu Indole and Berbere Gado are main watersheds of the Afar basin in Tigray.In terms of
groundwater resource, high and medium productivity aquifers/formations are concentrated around Mekele and
Hagere Selam. They are the Agulae Shale, the Antalo Limestone and Tertiary Dolerite (NEDECO, 1998). These
areas have high total dissolved solids (TDS) values (800-1,000mg/l).

Table 1, Ground Water Potential of Tigray region

S/n. Basin Temp.0C Rain fall (mm) Evaporation Water resource
name potential (billion
m3)
Min. Max. Min. Max. Aver. Aver. Surface Ground
water water
1. Tekeze <10 >22 600 1200 1300 1400 8.2 -
2. Mereb 680 2000 not 1500 0.72 0.11
3 Denakil 100 1500 not not 0.86 0.71
Total 9.76
Source, Tigray Bureau of Water Resource Mines and Energy Development (TBWRME), Water Resource Management Core
Process and Hydro geological detail feasibility study report of Raya valley, 2010

Potable water
From 2006-2009, the regional government in collaboration with nongovernmental organizations has developed 69
profound wells, 1476 medium wells, 2814 hand wells, and scaling up 579 spring water. Accordingly, the coverage of
potable water around urban areas has grown from 50% to 72% and in the rural areas it has risen from 41% to 60%.
Nevertheless, this coverage is very low as compared to what has been planned due to two main reasons: implementation
inefficiency and shortage of budget allocated to this very basic sector.
Irrigation development
In the past strategic plan, around 81,185 (63.4%) ha land was studied and designed for irrigation. In general, irrigation
structures have been prepared to irrigate about 62,714 ha land and 13,605 ha land was structured to develop it with the
help of irrigation. In sum, irrigation structures have been built on 76,319 ha and some of the challenges occurred in
relation to the expansion of irrigation were: shortage of contractors to build irrigation structures and unable to complete
projects on time based on plan.
The next five years GTP is designed based on the evaluation of the last four years (2006/07-2009/10) plan /identify
major results faced challenges/
The millennium development goals and objectives are taken as basis.
. The vision statement that the water resource bureau of Tigrai set to be achieved in 2024/25 is also another basis of
GTP plan.

Objective 1: Increasing the coverage of potable water supply to improve the life of people.
Target 1: By constructing 7,152 new potable water supply projects, maintaining already existing projects, improving
their administration system so as to advance the coverage of potable water in urban areas from 72% to 100% in rural
areas from 60% to 100%. And by maintaining 947 rural projects, it intended to reduce the amount of potable water
projects which are incapable of providing efficient services to lower down from 18 % to 7%.
Objective 2: Speeding up the economic growth of the region by expanding irrigation constructions
Target 1: Constructing and maintaining 100,515 water banks that can be administered by households and the society,
increasing the coverage for the development of the irrigation from 83,000 – 350,000 hectares. (Source from Next Five
Years (2010/11-2014/15) Regional GTP: Tigray Region Plan and Finance Bureau.)

Table 2, List of water supply projects constructed until 2014. Source from majella website (ICRC)

S/N Scheme Year Deep Shallow Hand Spring Potable Water

status well well dug well development. supply coverage

Rural Urban

1 Total Until 82 5251 5953 1527

scheme 2014

2 functional Until 59 4725 5259 1254 60% 72%

2014

3 dry Until 3 79 159 29 1.9%

2014

Non Until 20 447 535 244 9.8%

2014
4 functional
Urban Water Supply usage and access coverage at the end of 2005

Sn Name Usage Access

1 ADI HAGERAY-TOWN 85% 37%
2 ADI DAERO-TOWN 100% 60%
3 SELEKILEHA-TOWN 100% 36%
4 ZANA-TOWN 62% 62%
5 ENDABA GUNA-TOWN 100% 80%
6 MAY TSEBRI-TOWN 100% 40%
7 SHIRE ENIDASILASE-TOWN 79% 79%
8 SHIRARO-TOWN 78% 42%
9 RAMA-TOWN 100% 72%
10 GERIHU SEMAY-TOWN 55% 55%
11 INTICHO-TOWN 100% 88%
12 DIOBDIBO-TOWN 100% 41%
13 FERES MAY-TOWN 100% 27%
14 NEBELAT-TOWN 42% 42%
15 IDAGARBI-TOWN 48% 31%
16 MAYKINATIL-TOWN 58% 33%
17 CHILA-TOWN 80% 80%
18 WUKRO MARYA 89% 15%
19 HAGERE SELAM-TOWN 95% 95%
20 Agbe-Town 45% 45%
21 MEARAY-TOWN 65% 65%
22 ABIYI ADI-TOWN 44% 44%
23 ADWA-TOWN 100% 100%
24 AXUM-TOWN 100% 100%
25 ZALAMBESA-TOWN 100% 46%
26 FATSI-TOWN 85% 36%
27 DAWUHAN-TOWN 100% 100%
28 EDEGA HAMUS-TOWN 40% 40%
29 FIREWEYINI-TOWN 100% 47%
30 BAZET-TOWN 75% 75%
31 HAWUZEN-TOWN 74% 38%
32 AGULA-TOWN 65% 42%
33 ATSBI ENDASILASIE-TOWN 80% 41%
34 HAYKA MESAHIL-TOWN 54% 54%
35 ADIGRAT-TOWN 82% 56%
36 WUKRO-TOWN 75% 75%
37 SAMIRA-TOWN 78% 78%
38 ADI GUDOM-TOWN 100% 72%
39 ADISHOHU-TOWN 100% 100%
40 MESWAET-TOWN 100% 100%
41 MEHONI-TOWN 100% 59%
42 CHERCHER-TOWN 75% 61%
43 WAJA TEMUGA-TOWN 80% 35%
44 MAYCHEW-TOWN 100% 100%
45 KOREM-TOWN 100% 39%
46 ALAMATA-TOWN 100% 95%
47 RAWOYAN_Town 75% 72%
48 ADEBAYE-TOWN 75% 11%
49 BIHER-TOWN 100% 80%
50 MAY CADERA-TOWN 75% 54%
51 KETEMA NIGUS-TOWN 100% 100%
52 DANISHA-TOWN 75% 57%
53 HUMERA-TOWN 100% 84%
54 MEKELE TOWN SPECIAL-ZONE
Total 89% 80%

Table .3 irrigation potential in (ha)

regular irrigation supplementary

1st GTP Potential irrigation potential Total potential

Until 2002 82,893.00

2003 113,037.00 12,520.66 125,557.66

2004 155,702.34 49,724.66 205,427.00

2005 251,729.50 69,173.20 320,902.70

2006 326,016.50 105,189.20 431,205.70

2007 411,016.50 120,189.20 531,205.70

Water Resources Management

Water allocation for drinking and sanitation purposes will hold the highest priority followed by water requirements for
livestock in any water allocation plan. Rest will be allocated to the uses yielding highest socio-economic benefits. This
principle will be agreed upon for a fixed time horizon that best fits the socio-economic development plans of the
country, and will be subject to appraisals and adjustments in the light of changing conditions and new developments.
The water allocation plans will be developed taking into consideration basin, sub-basin and other hydrological
boundaries, with due consideration to the needs of drought prone areas. Appropriate watershed management
practices will be used to maximise water yields and quality. Protection of water quality will be secured.

1. Ensure that water allocation is based on efficient use of water resources; takes into account special consideration of
the needs of drought-prone and water-scarce areas; and gives the highest priority to water supply and sanitation.
(a) Develop and implement criteria to allocate water among different uses, and prepare water allocation procedures
and guidelines.
(b) Give special consideration to drought-prone areas--consider transfer of water from water-surplus to water deficit
areas.
(c) Devise and implement demand management measures to improve the water use efficiency in all water using
sectors.

2. Promote appropriate watershed management practices to promote water conservation, maximise water yields,
improve water quality, and reduce reservoir siltation.
(a) Undertake soil and water conservation measures such as the check dams, contour bunding contour ploughing,
terracing, etc. to reduce soil erosion and reservoir siltation. Enhance the infiltration of water into the soil through
development and implementation of afforestation and terracing programs.
(b) Rehabilitate degraded watersheds and regenerate natural vegetation.
(c) Establish soil and water conservation guidelines in relation to water resources development and ecosystem
management .
(d) Encourage and promote local community participation in watershed management and water conservation
measures and practices.

3. Co-ordinate the development and enforcement of appropriate mechanisms and standards to protect national water
resources from pollution.
(a) Conduct a systematic study to determine the extent of pollution of rivers flowing through cities from industrial
waste; sewage and other pollutants.
(b) Identify sources of pollution and their characteristics, in type, volume, quality and frequency; and prescribe
measures and mechanisms to minimize pollution effects.
(c) Ensure that industrial wastes or effluents are not dumped into water bodies without necessary and adequate
treatment.
(d) Set monitoring and control procedures, which are attainable, realistic, and enforceable.
(e) Establish national standards of water quality in consultations with relevant institutions.
(f) Introduce strong planning and regulatory framework to safeguard water quality protection. In this regard,
develop legislative means to prevent indiscriminate discharges of toxic materials into water bodies and follow-up
the enforcement.
(g) Utilise natural self purifying process of streams wherever possible.

4. Develop a coherent, efficient and streamlined process of information management in the water sector.
 (a) Develop databases on all aspects of water resources, such as surface water, ground water, hydrology,
meteorology, wells, boreholes, springs, water works, etc.
(b) Review and assess available water resources data and information at all levels, and identify water resources
information gaps.
(c) Identify sources of water information, and initiate a program for data collection to bridge these gaps.
(d) Design database structure to facilitate entry, storage, retrieval, review, analysis and dissemination of collected
water data.
(e) Identify and define information requirements of users.
(f) Develop guidelines on the dissemination of water resources information to enhance information networking.
(g) Establish interface between regional databases of water resource bureau and stakeholder bureaus.

Threats and opportunities

Co-ordinated efforts in terms of water resources development and management will be made to overcome flood related
disasters and combat drought and desertification. Such measures will include the safety of water retaining, transmission
and diversion structures like weirs, barrages, dams, reservoirs, pipelines, against natural and man-made disasters.

1. Develop and implement comprehensive plan of action to address flood related disasters.
(a) Undertake frequent and systematic forecasting of floods, and install automatic stage recorders at the strategic
sites on the flood-prone areas to record flood levels. Estimate flood sizes, in particular peak floods.
(b) Determine flood characteristics of the area, and issue timely flood warnings.
(c) Establish flood-plain zoning.
(d) Determine the possible methods of flood protection for given site specific conditions; and select the appropriate
sites for disaster prevention actions.
(e) Undertake appropriate flood control structural measures (levees, floodwalls, channel improvements, flood ways,
etc) in flood-affected areas.
(f) Ensure timely and regular maintenance of flood control structures.

2. Combat the droughts that claim the appalling loss of human life and livestock and deteriorate the environment.
(a) Undertake a study of history of droughts and damages in the country with an objective to guide water resources
development in the drought prone areas.
(b) Explore options for possible transfer of water from water surplus regions to drought-prone or water deficit areas.
(c) Intensify ground water exploration; formulate a comprehensive program for the selection of wells, boreholes,
stock ponds, sub-surface dams etc in the drought-affected areas.
(d) Ensure the proper maintenance of existing wells, ponds, sub-surface dams and the new schemes with active
participation of local communities.
(e) Avoid congested distribution of water points and cattle troughs to reduce desertification.
(f) Develop and implement schemes that encourage voluntary resettlement of people from water-scarce areas to
water surplus areas.
(g) Plan ahead of time for combating droughts rather going into crisis management of droughts and their effects.

3. Ensure the safety of water structures and carry out periodic safety checks.
(a) Use as far as possible long-term hydrological record and carefully correlated data while undertaking the design
of water structures.
(b) Take special care in the design of water structures on soft and difficult foundations; apply sound construction
methods and use appropriate construction materials.
(c) Provide corrective measures at the lowest practical cost while retaining project and environmental benefits.
 (d) Apply state-of- the art design standards and construction practices.
(e) Carry out periodic safety checks, at least once in three years, on existing water systems.
(f) Establish and implement safety regulations for major water structures. Preserve the structural safety of these
structures through regular checks and O&M, including allowance for earthquake affects.

Pollution of Water Bodies

Chemical pollutants discharged from farms, industries, mining operations and urban sewers harm water bodies.
Although one cannot say that the pollution of water bodies has become real serious in tigray, there is still a great deal of
pollution in the major towns of the region, in areas where mining is carried out as well as in areas of
Industrial are concentration. Some studies indicate that tributaries of adwa mekelle are being polluted as a result of urban
waste mismanagement and industrial discharges, particularly around wukro lezer factory and adwa almeda textile, saba
marble stone factories discharge their waste without any treatment into nearby water bodies.
What has been attempted above is to indicate partially the pressure that the water resource of the region is faced with.
The following are some of the other problems:
_ Limited capacity in the water resources sector;
_ The transboundary nature of the rivers like tekeze
_ The lack of reliable, standardized and continuously available water resources data;
_ Weakness in the maintenance and operation of water resources infrastructure;
_ The low level of research and development in the water sector;
_ The low level of harmonization of activities in the water sector with otherdevelopment sectors;
_ The weakness of project assessment & evaluation within the sector;
_ The low level of public participation.