Climate Variability and Change—Hydrological Impacts (Proceedings of the Fifth FRIEND World
Conference held at Havana, Cuba, November 2006), IAHS Publ. 308, 2006, 51–55.
The decline of hydrological data collection for development
of integrated water resource management tools in Southern Africa
HELEN HOUGHTON-CARR & MATT FRY
Centre for Ecology and Hydrology
(CEH), Wallingford, Oxfordshire OX10 8BB, UK
hahc@ceh.ac.uk
Abstract The Commission for Africa report (2005) recommends a doubling of arable
land under irrigation by 2015, and the World Bank water resources strategy
(2004) calls for increased investment in water infrastructure in Africa. The
NEPAD environment initiative (2003) states that addressing environmental issues
is necessary for achieving goals of sustainable growth and development and a
lasting solution to the eradication of poverty. Water resource management is
clearly recognized as critical to economic development in Africa, but the value
of the data on which decisions are based is less well appreciated, with a decline in data
collection and management in recent years.
The paper reviews the achievements of two regional initiatives to address the
“data problem” and discusses how to use the experience
gained for the benefit of future projects.
Key words
Southern Africa; data collection; integrated water resource management;
FRIEND; SADC-HYCOS