Groundwater Resources for Lusaka and selected catchments

General

The TC project supports the Zambian government in the sustainable management of its water resources. Groundwater protection is hardly an integral part of planning activities in the water sector due to insufficient hydrogeological data, a lack of legal foundations, a lack of technical and institutional capacities and a not very pronounced awareness on the part of political decision-makers. The overall objective of the TC measure Groundwater Resources for Lusaka and Selected Catchment Areas is therefore: "Groundwater management and protection as integral components of national water resource management in Zambia are improved". Through the participatory production of planning tools, those responsible from politics, business and civil society are provided with sound knowledge about the availability, quality and need for protection of groundwater resources in selected pilot areas. By feeding this knowledge into urban and land use planning processes, and in particular into water use plans for river basins, groundwater issues as a whole, and protection aspects in particular, will be given greater consideration in key water resource management (WRM) strategies and policy documents. Furthermore, a functional groundwater department will be established in the newly founded Water Resources Management Authority (WRMA), which is responsible for WRM, as part of a complementary technical and process advisory service. This department is to take on tasks independently, including the determination of groundwater extraction rates and the assessment of groundwater quality, and to actively introduce groundwater-relevant topics into (urban) planning processes and policy-making in coordination with the WRMA departments.

Objectives

Groundwater management and protection as integral components of national water resource management in Zambia are improved