Landscape scale Disaster Risk Reduction: Water trade-offs to reduce drought in the Tana Delta

The Tana Delta is at the far downstream end of the Tana River Basin which provides eighty percent of Nairobi’s drinking water. Fifty-sixty percent of Kenya’s current energy demand is generated through hydropower dams. Seven million people live in the river basin with mostly agricultural livelihoods.

Expansion of hydropower infrastructure, an oil refinery, and additional irrigation schemes are being planned in or adjacent to the basin. These developments put the river’s health and services under threat. Over-abstraction of water in the Basin could lead to limited water flows downstream.

Wetlands international undertook an extensive cost benefit study of the entire Tana River Basin to support the recommendation to invest in water saving measures and in less water-dependent economic development.