12th March 2023: Dr. Emmanuel Rukundo, the Director General of the Rwanda Water Resources Board (RWB) met the Mayors of both Musanze and Burera Districts in Northern Province in line with discussions that tended to review the implementation process of 'Floods Management in Volcanoes Region Project.'

These official meetings were held on 10th March 2023. Mr. Ramuli Janvier, the Mayor of Musanze District, and Marie Chantal Uwanyirigira, the Mayor of Burera District both attended.

The 'Floods Management in Volcanoes Region Project' is implemented by the RWB. Its main goal is to protect citizens in the concerned districts against floods from volcanoes.

In 2018, RWB worked on a detailed design of flood control measures in the Volcanoes area. The study's aimed was to implement flood mitigation measures and protection structures in Burera, Musanze, Nyabihu and Rubavu districts.

Through the ongoing works, various structural and non-structural measures mitigate flood risks and to optimize benefits from floodplain areas in twenty-two main gullies that were identified in the four districts.

Burera has eleven gullies, Musanze with eight gullies, Nyabihu with 2 gullies, and Rubavu with 1 gully.

The major volcanoes' flooding impacted community, infrastructure, and agriculture activities, resulting in property damage, loss of agricultural soils and other infrastructures such as roads, bridges, and culverts, among other things.

This project's overall mitigation measures focus on reducing the flooded areas and include infrastructures such as retention ponds to reduce flood peak flow, rehabilitation of water channels, construction of small bridges, and installation of gabions check dams for cave rehabilitation and maintenance.

Nonstructural measures of the project, on the other hand, include ecosystem implementation, nature-based approaches to managing flood risk, erosion, and runoff control measures, gully bank protection, and relocation of people from high-risk areas.