18th November 2021 - The staff from the Rwanda Water Resources Board (RWB) along with different stakeholders namely the Ministry of Environment (MoE), the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), and the University of Rwanda (UR) have been trained on water monitoring during the workshop taking place from 15^th to 19^th November 2021 in Rubavu District.

The objective of the 'Water Quality Monitoring' workshop underway is to make an inventory and validate available data related to water quality in Rwanda using scientific research papers and reports; train the participants on water quality monitoring tools; and identity and familiarize them with water quality monitoring tools needed for physicochemical parameters measurement and sampling.

Moreover, the training involves water quality data collection, validation, and data entry in water data management system (AQUARIUS) that will keep all water quality-related data for further use.

Background

Pollution of water bodies results in the degradation of aquatic systems and public health problems for those using untreated water in various activities.

In addition to this, a high level of pollutants in water bodies increases the treatment cost associated with their removal and in turn, increases the cost of potable water. Pollution of water bodies in Rwanda comes from various anthropogenic activities.

The country is dominated by high slopes gradient agricultural land, which is easily exposed to erosion, floods, and landslides. This results in contaminating the water bodies with high levels of nutrients from fertilizers and other contaminants present in agricultural soil. In addition to this, the wastewater from various sources is discharged directly into the water bodies without treatment.

Water bodies in Rwanda are also suffering from morphological change and physical disturbances of the habitat caused by human activities such as sand extraction and mining activities discharging sediments directly into the river.

RWB has the responsibility to establish water resources quality and quantity preservation strategies and to cooperate and collaborate with other regional and international institutions with a similar mission.

It has been observed that there are some gaps that may hinder the decision making related to the protection of water resources in Rwanda:  water quality data are scattered in some scientific papers and reports, staffs that are not well familiar with water quality monitoring tools and Water quality monitoring plans, all these limiting the annual consultancy scope of existing water quality monitoring campaigns conducted within RWB.

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