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Development of Integrated Water Resource Strategy and monitoringof wetlands and river catchments of Laikipia County, Kenya
Implementing partners
Kenya Wetlands Biodiversity Research Group (KENWEB)
Laikipia Wildlife Forum (LWF)
Background
Laikipia County is lowland with numerous volcanic ridges cut into by two major rivers
Ewaso Narok and Ewaso Nyiro with various tributaries flowing down from theAberdares and Mt. Kenya. The Ewaso Narok River sustains Ewaso Narok andRumuruti forests, Ngare Narok swamp and flows through several ranches and finallyjoining Ewaso Nyiro river. These riverine, wetland and forest ecosystems support a
myriad of socio-economic activities of forest users, pastoralists and farmers andmaintain a great number of wildlife. The Laikipia County possesses the highest
population of wildlife in the country outside protected areas. The county is largely
water scarce and thus human-wildlife and social water users conflicts are of major
concern.
At present, the water resources of the rivers and wetlands are managed by the Water
Resource Management Authority (under the Ministry of Environment, Water andNatural Resources) who in turn engage local communities to form Water Resource
Users Associations (WRUAs). 25 WRUAs operate in the Laikipia County with theresponsibility to manage water allocation and use. The allocation of water has
generated much conflict between farming communities located in the upper zones of
the river and the pastoral groups in the lower sections. Various partners have worked
with the communities to enable equity in water sharing and to maintain its quality andthe integrity of riparian and catchment areas.
The Kenya Wetlands Biodiversity Research Group (KENWEB) has worked in Laikipiawetlands and associated riverine ecosystems providing information for improved
conservation of biodiversity and for the development of the Kenya Wetlands Atlas, aproject of the Ministry of Environment, Water and Natural Resources.
The Laikipia Wildlife Forum (LWF) is involved in the monitoring and management offorest, rangeland and wetlands in the upper Ewaso Ng’iro basin, much of which lies in
Laikipia County. Due to the high demand for improved support in the water
management, water program was set up and has supported WRUAs in a variety ofactivities including governance issues for registration of the associations, rainwater
harvesting among others. Many WRUAs have existed for close to 10 years and havea variety of specific needs depending on the size and volume of the river catchmentthat they are located. In order to adequately support integrated water resource
management of this region, LWF and KENWEB have proposed to work together on
an IWRM strategy for the Laikipia county to enable development partners invest on

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building up community ability to manage scarce resources based on particular waterneeds of each WRUA and the environment to maintain biodiversity.
Objectives and Methology:
This project supports the following Satoyama Initiative activity clusters 1/
knowledge Facilitation, 2/ Policy Research, 3/ Research for Indicators and 4/ Capacity
Building.
The main objectives of the project are to: 1/ provide guidance to development
agencies such as LWF towards support of water conservation and management in
Laikipia county 2/ provide a simple manual or guide for communities to monitor andreport the status of wetlands and river ecosystems
The methodology to be applied by the partners include stakeholder workshops withWRUAs; field visits for analyses status of river catchment protection, water quality
and quality and to determine capacity of WRUAs for IWRM; capacity building
workshops on areas identified that require specific training including on monitoring ofwetlands and riverine environments. KENWEB researchers and affiliates will produce
a simple guidebook in order to enable monitoring and long-term data acquisition on
biodiversity and hydrology by resident researchers and ranch managers as well as
field officers responsible for environmental protection and biodiversity conservation.
The use of this guidebook will ensure sustainability of adequate water for human andlivestock use, and for development of agriculture, fisheries and wildlife resources.
The guidebook will be handed to communities for monitoring purposes in a five-stepprocess working with KENWEB scientists and the LWF Water Program: Step 1/
demonstrative use whereby the researchers will demonstrate the methodology 2/
participatory use whereby the communities will work with the researchers in using themanual 3/ instructive use whereby the communities work on their own withresearchers instructing 4/ non-instructive use whereby the community work with theresearchers watching but thereafter receive feed back 5/ independent use whereby
the community work on their own and send data to researchers for validation.
This data will continuously be collected and analyzed in the long-term by the water
program of LWF with collaboration of KENWEB and used for decision making forconservation and management of wetland and river ecosystem and for support ofcommunities livelihood programs.
Outline for wetland and river basin monitoring guidebook
Section one - Introduction
1.1
introduction of wetlands
1.2
why we should monitor wetlands
1.3
purpose of this guide; how to use this guide
1.4
selecting monitoring sites, tools and indicators
Section two Drainage system and wetlands of Laikipia CountySC-6, Fukui
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2.1
2.2

geographical location
drainage and hydrology

Section three Indicators and procedures for wetland monitoring
3.1
biological monitoring tools and procedures
3.2.1 birds
3.2.2 fish
3.2.3 mammals
3.2.4 herpetofauna
3.2.5 macroinvertebrates
Section four - Water quality monitoring tools, procedures and indicators
4.1water quality
4.2
water quantity
Section five - Baseline data on Laikipia wetlands
5.1
Laikipia wetland related fauna and flora baseline data and identification guides
5.2Standard data collection format for wetland monitoring
5.3
Feedback and contacts
The outputs of the project are: 1/ IWRM Strategy report for the upper Ewaso Nyiro
ecosystem; 2/ Wetlands and river basin monitoring guidebook for Laikipia County withbaseline information on existing biodiversity and hydrological status of selected sites
3/ a video documentary highlighting compliance, enforcement and governance issues
facing WRUAs including examples of best practice.
Project execution dates:The guidebook and strategy documents will be printed by December 2013
The handing over of the guidebook to the community and capacity building foruse is suggested for January to June 2014.

Contact details:
Wanja Dorothy Nyingi – Coordinator, KENWEB
Mordecai Ogada, Executive Director, LWF