Water resources and climate

Abstract

Major water resources in the country include rivers, lakes, wetlands, springs, reservoirs and groundwater aquifers and many water bodies are shared with neighbouring countries. In Tanzania water management is divided into nine water basins namely Lake Victoria, Lake Tanganyika, Lake Rukwa, Rufiji, Lake Nyasa, Ruvuma and Southern Coast, Wami-Ruvu, Pangani and Internal drainage basins. Water is an important resource to all sectors; such as agriculture, health, manufacturing, energy, mining, livestock and tourism. It also supports livelihoods by sustaining both rainfed and irrigatedtraditional farming systems, fishing as well as environment (terrestrial and aquatic systems) including provision of ecosystem services such as climate regulation and water purification (UK AID, 2011, Stacey, 2011). More than half of the country receives on the average less than 800mm of rain per year (URT, 2007). The seasonal changes in atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with unequal heating of land and sea that exist in the country, accounts for extreme temporal variability in rainfall and even more extreme variability in river flows. Tanzania's annual renewable water resources are 89 cubic kilometres or 2,700 cubic meters of water per person per year (World Resources Institute 2000- 2001 ).The current amount is 2,020 cubic meters per person per year and will continue to drop over time as population increases and it is anticipated in 2015 population will reach 52 million people, if current rate of population growth from previous censuses are put into perspective i.e. 10 million in 1960 and 44.8 million in 2012 (URI, 2012) making country's per capita water resources to fall below 1,700 cubic meters per person, making Tanzania one of the water stressed country. With climate change, there will always be stresses on most nations' water resources particularly their hydrological systems and also economic/social consequences to arisedue to inadequate storage infrastructure to cope with climate variability.