Abstract
Anthropogenic factors associated with damming and water abstraction, and the resultant environmental pressures, are reviewed in six African river catchments using records and forecasts of climatic, demographic, and land-use change. Changes in the states of the flow regime through catchment drainage systems to the coastal sea are considered in conjunction with climate change and other human-induced pressures. The impacts of these changes on downstream and coastal environments and their communities are described in past, present, and future perspectives. Linkages between the issues and the pressures of damming and water abstraction are appraised and scientific, policy, and management responses proposed aimed at remedying existing and perceived future negative impacts. The study proposes that there is a need to integrate catchment and coastal management to account for the whole water flow regime together with its human dimensions. Management priorities relating to the operation of existing damming and abstraction schemes and planning of future schemes include the following: consideration of ways in which water discharges could be adjusted to provide improvements in downstream and coastal environmental and socioeconomic conditions; addressing the problem of sediment trapping impacting on the sustainability of dam reservoirs; and assessment of downstream and coastal impacts of future schemes in the light of climate change forecasts.
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Acknowledgments
The authors are pleased to acknowledge the generous financial support for these case studies principally from START but also from IOC and IHP of UNESCO. They thank the representatives of the many organizations that contributed to the LOICZ-AfriCat I Synthesis Workshop, held in Mombasa in February 2004, under the auspices of the Coastal and Marine Secretariat of NePAD (New Partnership for Africa Development). They acknowledge the cooperation and assistance of the many public and private bodies that have made information available to the project, in particular, the Conseil Supérieur de l’Eau and the ministries of Public Works, Agriculture and Environment in Morocco, OMVS, SOGEM, and SOGED for the Senegal basin, the Tana and Athi Rivers Development Authority (TARDA) in Kenya, and the Rufiji Basin Development Authority (RUBADA) and Tanzania Meteorological Agency in Tanzania. The article incorporates the findings of the many contributors to the project, whose work is published as a series of papers in LOICZ Reports and Studies Report No. 29 (Arthurton and others 2006).
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Snoussi, M., Kitheka, J., Shaghude, Y. et al. Downstream and Coastal Impacts of Damming and Water Abstraction in Africa. Environmental Management 39, 587–600 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-004-0369-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-004-0369-2