8th August 2022: The State of Soil Erosion Control in Rwanda 2022 is the result of collaborative efforts between the Government of Rwanda through Rwanda Water Resources Board (RWB) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as part of the Embedding Integrated Water Resources Management in Rwanda project funded by the Embassy of Kingdom of the Netherlands in Rwanda.

In this report The results of the erosion control mapping shows that of the 30 districts of Rwanda, land under high erosion risk is about 1,080,168 hectares (45% of the total provinces land which is estimated to 2, 385, 830 hectares) of which 71 941 hectares (7% of the total risk areas) are at extremely high risk, 190, 433 hectares are at very high risk (18% of the total land at erosion risk), 300,805 hectares are at high risk (28% of the total risk identified), and 516,999 hectares (48% of the total land at risk) are at moderate risk.

Efforts made in controlling erosion in Rwanda

In Rwanda, it was observed that the erosion control techniques i.e. proportion of land at erosion risk which are today protected against erosion for each district is very low.

In fact, of 1,080,168 hectares of land at risk in all provinces, only 282,352 hectares are protected against erosion (26% of the country land at risk) of which 28,870 hectares are protected by contour bank terraces (commonly known as progressive terraces covering (10% of the land protected) while forests protect about 190,011 hectares at risk (67 % of land protected).

There are other practices like bench terraces (42,379 ha: 15%), hedgerows and shrubs (318 hectares), etc. About 797,816 hectares are not protected yet which is about 74 % of the total country land at risk.

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