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How to manage shared water resources sustainably and equitably
Case study: Nile Basin Decision Support System
The Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) is a partnership initiated and led by the riparian states of the Nile River:
Nile Basin Initiative
- Burundi - DR Congo - Egypt - Eritrea - Ethiopia - Kenya
- Rwanda - South Sudan - Sudan - Tanzania - Uganda
The NBI’s vision is:
‘to achieve sustainable socio-economic development through the equitable utilisation and benefit from the common Nile Basin water resources’
Nile Basin Initiative
The NBI wanted to establish a Nile Basin Decision Support System (NB-DSS) to support water resources planning and investment decisions in the Nile Basin, especially those with cross-border or basin level ramifications.
Nile Basin Decision Support System
NB-DSS objectives: - To serve as a shared knowledge base
- Support stakeholder interaction for cooperative planning and management decision making for the Nile River Basin
- An agreed upon tool, accepted and used by all riparians in the management of the shared Nile water resources
Nile Basin Decision Support System
The NB-DSS is a common, computer-based platform for communication, information management, and analysis of water resources, which integrates:
- An information management system (database, GIS, data processing tools)
- A water resources modelling system
- Analytical tools (optimisation, benefit-cost analysis, multi-criteria analysis)
Nile Basin Decision Support System
Comprehensive information management - A suite of statistical and other data
management tools for analysis, visualization and archiving of diverse types of data
- Integrated metadata capability
- GIS functionality enables users to analyse and generate spatial and geo-referenced datasets
Key functionalities and model components
Key functionalities and model components
Suite of water resources models - Integrated modelling tools for simulating water
balance, water allocation, river flow, erosion and sedimentation at varying scales
- Investigate impacts of existing and anticipated different types and scales of water infrastructure investments and uses
- Alternative modelling tools with a built-in model linking/nesting facility
Key functionalities and model components
Multi-objective optimisation - It generates optimal solutions to a
range of water resources planning problems
- Users can integrate economic, social and environmental parameters in defining the objective functions
Key functionalities and model components
Scenario analysis and management - It provides a versatile facility for creating, editing,
simulating and analysing water resources development and management scenarios.
- Users can compare different scenarios in terms of parameters selected by the user
- The built-in cost-benefit-analysis functions allow the quantification of benefits, impacts and trade-offs of scenarios
Key functionalities and model components
Integration of environmental and socio-economic objectives - A built-in flexible indicator tool for evaluation
(quantification) of environmental and socio-economic consequences of water resources development and management scenarios
- These quantified indicators, in turn, can be used to rank water resources scenarios using the multi-criteria decision analysis tool
Key functionalities and model components
Flexible / scalable architecture - Any component of the NB DSS has
access to any data set used or generated by another component
- The DSS can be extended with new toolsets without the need for a major change to the program code, making it easily adaptable to address emerging needs of users
A pilot application of the NB-DSS was undertaken to demonstrate and showcase the system’s capabilities, which involved: - Data compilation and preparation
- Stakeholder workshops
- Development of baseline models
- Scenario definition and implementation
- Definition and quantification of indicators
- Scenario evaluation
Application of the Nile Basin DSS
The study areas included: 1. NELSAP multi-sectoral investment programme - focus
on Kagera Basin 2. Impacts of water resource developments on the Sudd 3. Eastern Nile joint multipurpose programme - Blue Nile 4. NELSAP multi-sectoral investment programme - focus
on Equatorial Nile Basin 5. Integrated water resources development of the Baro-
Akobo Basin 6. Impact of Atbara-Tekeze River upstream developments
on the Main Nile downstream 7. Integrated basin wide application of the NB-DSS
Application of the Nile Basin DSS
Conclusions from the pilot application
- NB-DSS is a powerful tool - sufficiently capable of advanced water management scenario evaluation
- It provides an accessible and transparent framework for sharing knowledge and understanding river system behaviour
- It supports the design and evaluation of alternative development scenarios, investment projects and management strategies
- The integrated components of the NB-DSS seamlessly combine to facilitate cooperative decision making within a transboundary, multi-stakeholder and multi-disciplinary environment
Contact: Verno Jonker Water Resources Management Leader +27 21 526 5779 [email protected]
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