CSE to Develop Water Quality Management System in Awash River Basin

Addis Ababa August 14/2018 Indian based Center for Science and Environment (CSE) in collaboration with Ministry of  Environment, Forest and Climate Change set to develop water quality management system in Awash River Basin. A four-day workshop under the theme of “Development of Environmental Monitoring Network Using Smart and Affordable System” opened here in Addis Ababa today. The workshop, which aimed at building capacity on environment monitoring, was attended by participants from eight African countries who are working on environmental regulatory bodies, department of environment ministries. Deputy Director at Center for Science and Environment, Chandra Bhushan said the center is working with the ministry to develop monitoring plan on Awash Basin to enhance its water quality. Once the monitoring plan is approved by the government of Ethiopia, the project will be able to generate scientific data on water quality management in Awash Basin, he said. "Monitoring is very expensive and that's why many African countries cannot afford the expenses for quality water and air managing systems," he added. "One of the problems in Africa is lack of data on environmental quality, so it is very difficult to make management plan in improving quality of water. That's why the smart and affordable management will work,” he said. The smart and affordable technology enables to monitor the river properly and identify the quality of water in the river that would help to develop the management system. Following the successful implementation of the technology on how to monitor pollution in Awash Basin, the project will be multiplied to other rivers in rift valley section of the country, the Deputy Director pointed out. Acting State Minister at Ministry, Wordi Hashim on his part said though Africa is endowed with large fresh water reserves, water management remains a serious problem. According to him, increased population, rapid industrialization and unplanned urban development are resulting in generating and discharging large amount of wastes into the water bodies is posing a risk on the quality of the fresh waters of the continent. This resulted in deteriorating the quality of water and scarcity. This has given verifiable examples of uncertainties, complexity of the system to be managed and the need for profound changes in policy and management paradigms as well as governance systems, he indicated. "With the objective to make the water quality of our basins suitable for intended uses, Ethiopia in collaboration with the CSE is developing water monitoring strategy for Awash Basin River, which is one of the intensively used rivers in Ethiopia, Wordi added. Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) is a public interest research and advocacy organization based in New Delhi.