Uganda gets 13 Nile water stations

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) has improved Uganda’s water monitoring system with an additional 13 modern digital hydro-meteorological monitoring stations in Lake Victoria and along the River Nile.

The stations worth 2.7 Billion Shillings are part of NBI’s initiative to improve transboundary water monitoring systems in the region to support member states in receiving timely and reliable data for effective water resources management, planning, and development. HydroMet stations in Uganda have also been used in aviation operations, navigation, and many other human activities.

43 stations have been set up across the nine NBI member states, of which 14 are in Uganda. However, one will remain directly under cooperation for research and study purposes for NBI. These stations are additional to the 172 that the Ministry of Water has been managing.

Florence Adongo, the NBI Executive Director says that Uganda is the fourth country in the region to receive the hydrometeorological systems. She said that effective and reliable regional monitoring of water and related resources is crucial for coping with rising demand and competing interests for water resources, as well as mitigating or reversing the adverse effects of climate change on the population.

According to Adongo, in addition to the stations, NBI has upgraded nine data centres, one in each of the member countries, and established two regional data centres at the NBI Secretariat and another at the Lake Victoria Basin Commission offices. She added that the stations are designed to support all data-related aspects from collection to utilization, using satellite control systems.

Sowedi Ssewagudde, the Commissioner for Transboundary Waters in the Ministry of Water and Environment, acknowledged the significance of the stations. He said that they will act as a reliable source of water information for early warning of floods.

Callist Tindimugaya, the Commissioner for Water Resources Management in the Ministry of Water, who is also the NBI Technical Advisory Committee Chairman, said that the new stations will improve the speed of water release decisions in all the dams along the River Nile, which has not been very swift in the past, giving an example of the recent increase in the amount of water to be released.

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