•The Tana River supplies 95 percent of the water for Nairobi residents, and another five million living in the watershed.
•It also feeds one of the country’s most important agricultural areas and provides half of the country’s hydropower output.
Image: NWSC
The over four million residents of Nairobi are enjoying improved quality of water as a result of heightened conservation efforts within the Upper Tana catchment area.
Eddy Njoroge, president of Upper Tana Nairobi Water Fund Trust, on Tuesday revealed that 41 million more litres of water was flowing to Nairobi each day as a result of interventions at the upper catchment.
“There is a 26 per cent average increase in annual water yield,” he said.
Njoroge made the remarks at Serena Hotel when the trust launched a five-year strategic plan.
Nature Conservancy regional managing director Ademola Ajagbe was present.
Njoroge said there has been over 16 per cent reduction in turbidity concentration in raw water for treatment.
“Over 2.8 million trees are growing in the watershed with over 500 hectares of forest rehabilitated,” he said.
Njoroge said 196,000 acres of land has been put under sustainable management with 318 kilometres of riparian land protected.
Tana river supplies 95 percent of the water for Nairobi residents, and another five million living in the watershed.
It also feeds one of the country’s most important agricultural areas and provides half of the country’s hydropower output.
With Nairobi contributing 60 percent of the country’s GDP,Tana river fuels Kenya’s economic growth.
Since the early 1970s, forests on steep hillsides and areas of wetlands have been converted to agricultural use, removing natural areas for storing runoff water and soil from the land.
This meant that rains washed soils down into the river, which reduces the productivity of farmland and sends sediment into the rivers.
This increased sedimentation can choke water treatment and distribution facilities causing complete service disruptions for days or weeks at a time.
The challenge required innovative approach to protect the Tana River, increase downstream water quality and quantity and provide positive benefits for tens of thousands of farmers in the watershed.
In 2015, the Nature Conservancy launched the Upper Tana-Nairobi Water Fund to help secure the source of water for Nairobi.
Water funds are founded on the principle that it is cheaper to prevent water problems at the source than it is to address them further downstream.
Public and private donors and major water consumers downstream contribute to the fund to support upstream water and soil conservation measures, resulting in improved water quality and supply.
UTNWF allows urban users to invest in upstream watershed conservation efforts for the benefit of farmers, businesses and more than nine million Kenyans who depend on the Tana river for their fresh water.
In September 1, 2021, the trust became an independent Kenyan-registered entity.
Njoroge said more than 51,000 farmers are now applying soil conservation and water saving methods.
“There has been an over $3 million(Sh342 million) increased agricultural yields for small holder farmers per year. We now have 8,500 coffee farmers certified for Rainforest Alliance,” he said.
Over the next five years, the fund seeks to expand its farmers outreach program by an additional 20,000 households from the current 50,000 beneficiaries.
Furthermore, it plans to install an additional 5,000 water pans to the current 15,000.
It also plans to increase forest coverage by planting 3 million more trees to hit a target of 7 million by 2026.
During the occasion, several corporates made contributions and pledges to boost the endowment kitty.
East Africa Breweries Limited and KCB Group Foundation gave Sh5 million each while UPS Foundation contributed Sh2.5 million.
Njoroge said more than 44,000 farmers are enrolled in mobile data monitoring and extension platform.
He said 15,463 water pans have been excavated.
On resource mobilisation, Njoroge said some 8 million dollars had been provided by Global Environment Facility.
He said they are looking for an endowment fund to run the project.
“Our target is about Sh500 million out of that, we should be able to earn Sh50 million every year and that is the one which will be running our programmes,” he said.
Njoroge said they have so far mobilised approximately Sh240 million and they are now looking for approximately Sh260 million to top up to fill the endowment fund.
He said one of the donors from the UK has given them one million dollars(Sh114 million) that is a matching fund only when they raise the remaining 1.6 million dollars (Sh182 million).
Ajagbe said there is need to look into how to increase the quality and quantity of water provided.
“So this important initiative is about looking into how we can increase production for people so that we can protect important critical ecosystem upstream and also increase provisioning of water for people,” he said.
Ajagbe said the provision of water for businesses is not just about having more connection but also protecting the critical sources where the water is coming from.
(Edited by Francis Wadegu)