Africa-Press – Namibia. EFFECTIVE governance of groundwater resources is an indispensable aspect of protecting the invisible resource in supporting water and food security, says the executive director of agriculture, water and land reform.
Ndiyapuki Nghituwamata said this in a speech read on her behalf by a senior official in the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Land Reform, Maria Amwaama, at the three-day fifth Southern African Development Community (SADC) groundwater conference held in Windhoek recently.
She said good groundwater governance would optimise the allocation of the benefits of groundwater by ensuring that no one is left behind and that underserved communities and sectors are prioritised.
This, she said, would also lead to the utilisation of efficient, effective, and sustainable technologies to support investments and ensure that the accruing benefits from groundwater are cost-effective, appropriate, and fit for purpose for the Namibian environment.
Nghitumwamata said the objective of water resource management in Namibia is to use groundwater resources in a long-term, sustainable manner, without causing environmental damage.
“This implies that the full storage potential of a groundwater system is not totally utilised, but to limit permitted abstractions within the bounds of long-term annual recharge estimates determined from water balance calculations.
“The groundwater map for Namibia noted that the rate at which groundwater can be abstracted from an aquifer is determined by its porosity, the permeability and the storage capacity. This is how the volume of water that is available to abstract is determined. Given this understanding, the long-term sustainable safe yield of an aquifer also depends on the recharge of the water abstracted or discharged,” she said.
Nghitumwamata said while information about the occurrence of groundwater and the magnitude of groundwater resources have been gathered in Namibia for more than a century, this knowledge has never been collated and presented in a way that the public and scholars can access, appreciate and understand.
The conference was held under the theme ‘Groundwater: Making the Invisible Visible for Socio-economic Development’, and was organised by the SADC-Groundwater Management Institute (SADC-GMI).
SADC-GMI executive director James Saurambe said there is a need for SADC member states to have knowledge on groundwater resources in the region so that more efforts can be made to access this for the socio-economic development of the region.
Dumisani Mndzebele said SADC needs to harness the productive power of groundwater, adding that groundwater is quite instrumental in achieving water security as it is quicker to develop and with less treatment.
“We believe in water peace. People said water is an enabler as it unlocks development, but it can also cause conflicts. Groundwater is important in poverty reduction, but we need to make it more visible through knowledge,” he said.
For More News And Analysis About Namibia Follow Africa-Press
