Rainwater Harvesting and Management for Climate Change Adaptation with a focus on East Africa

IWA, Rain Water Harvesting and Management Workshop at International Conference

Target Audience

Policymakers, practitioners, academics and researchers, utilities, NGO staff, water supply engineers, students

Description

This webinar was part of a hybrid workshop being organised by the Rainwater Harvesting and Management Specialist Group and in the Programme of the 3rd International Maji Scientific Conference. The Conference was from 31 January – 2 February 2024 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

The webinar demonstrated the effectiveness of rainwater harvesting (RWH) and storage for raising people’s water security and resilience in the face of climate change effects.  

Current water supply coverage still leaves out 7 to 11% of the world population. Investment in rainwater harvesting and storage can benefit half of those still left behind and will pay off in health and wellbeing, improved nutrition through kitchen gardening, income generation and school attendance, while raising water security.  

The workshop highlighted cases where (subsidised) self-supply through RWH overcame the absence of centralised water supply services. It promoted the application of RWH to sector planners as a decentralised measure contributing to universal access in safe water supply (SDG6.1), ecosystem restoration (SDG 6.6), poverty alleviation (SDG 1) and nutrition (SDG2), and climate change adaptation (SDG13).

Recommended reading: A list of freely available publications on Rainwater Harvesting

Presentations

Learning Objectives

Participants should now be able to: 

  • Grasp the concept of rainwater harvesting as a water supply and climate change adaptation option and promote it in their own operational environment 
  • Argue that rainwater is too valuable to waste 
  • Access additional information on rainwater harvesting in freely-downloadable handbooks and websites (e.g. IWA, YouTube) 

Host

IWA

Panelists