River Rwizi marked as Uganda’s most degraded water resource

Environmental degradation and climate change are synonymous phrases often used to describe the state of nature and its impact on earth occasioned by human activities. Man’s relentless and reckless assault on environment has resulted in global warming, triggered extreme adverse weather conditions, ruined economies, agricultural productivity, human health and livelihoods worldwide.

In Uganda, man’s assault on environment has reached epidemic proportions. Nearly all the country’s rivers, lakes, wetlands, forests and other natural endowments that influence climate have been degraded or under imminent threat.

A research by the University of Birmingham says about 41 percent of Uganda’s total area is degraded.

The report cited as “Current and Projected Impacts of Renewable Natural Resources Degradation in Uganda  released in May 2018, says 12 percent of Uganda’s land area is in severe state of degradation.

Lakeshores have been invaded altering the quality and volume of water. Rivers have shrunk affecting the flow, quality and quantity of water for human and livestock consumption, industrial use and agricultural production within the degraded catchments, thus contributing to the general global climate change.  In Ankole region in western Uganda, its biggest and longest river—Rwizi— has been shrinking and is dying out due to degradation of its wetlands and tributaries. In some places the river has shrunk up to half of its original size or width.
River Rwizi has a catchment of 8200 square kilometres and spans 12 districts and local governments with 2.5 million people (about 4.5% of the national population based on the Uganda Bureau of Statistics 2014 report) who depend on it. It straddles the districts of Sheema, Bushenyi, Ntungamo, Rwampara, Mbarara, Isingiro, Kiruhura, Lyantonde, Lwengo, Rakai and Kyotera and Mbarara City before it moves down to pour its waters into Lake Victoria.

The water volume has so shrunk that, in many areas, the once powerful river looks like a village stream today. More significantly, the river is the main source of water for Mbarara city, a major business city hub for western Uganda with a population of over 1,000,000 people. The city has many emerging industries for beverages, milk, construction, agro-processing and health facilities and farm lands among others that will need more water for their operational needs than is available today.

Source of River Rwizi

The river is constituted by many wetlands that flow into each other at different points along its course until the waters converge downstream at Nyakambu on the Mbarara-Sheema district boundary to form one mass water body called River Rwizi. There has been a debate about the source of the river. One version says the river starts from Sheema district. This claim relies on the fact that the mass water body that makes Rwizi starts at Nyakambu in Sheema. However this version does not explain where this water originates before it converges at Nyakambu bridge.

Another account traces the origin of the river to the hills of the neighbouring Buhweju district. This account is the most credible. 

With guidance of local leaders, environmentalists and residents, this writer was able to trace the source of Rwizi in a small hill of Rwemigoye in Kyenjogyera parish, Buhunga sub-county in Buhweju.

The steep Rwemigoye hill lies between a chain of undulating hills which look like rivals that have suffered the wrath of the same tormentor–mankind. Right in the middle of the hill are waterfalls, a sign that the source is lurking in the vicinity. The waterfalls rumble violently over a hard rock. One could be forgiven for mistaking this to be the source of the river. It requires endurance and manoeuvre through a rough terrain of interlocking rocks to reach the actual source a little farther uphill.

Shortly before the hilltop, a short savanna vegetation sits on a shallow layer of soil holding loose rocks together. Underneath the rocks, jets of clean water gush out to announce the source of River Rwizi. The jets of water immediately form a small stream that runs downhill into the Kyenjogyera wetland in the valley below, continuing downstream to be joined by waters from other feeder wetlands up to Nyakambu to form Ankole’s biggest river.

Why River Rwizi is drying up

The writer’s field investigation about River Rwizi degradation established mass encroachment on the Kyenjogyera- Mushasha-Kyeirungu wetland system in Buhweju.

This wetland is a major catchment that contributes probably the highest amount of water to River Rwizi upstream. 

Degradation of similar magnitude is conspicuous on the river’s other wetland system originating from Kibimba through Kajani and Nsiika in Buhweju before the two wetlands merge their waters at Nyakambu on the Mbarara-Sheema boundary to create River Rwizi.

At Nyakafumura in Buhweju, a few kilometres upstream from Nyakambu, the entire wetland which is part of the Mushasha-Kyeirungu catchment, has been drained to create more space for agriculture. Livestock can be seen grazing in the middle of what used to be a wetland.

Only a narrow canal which the encroachers created to aid and accelerate drainage runs through the degraded wetland. On either side of the small stream or canal are crop and livestock farms. At the crossing point of the wetland, a resident who did not disclose his name, was found distilling crude gin (locally known as waragi) from local banana brew (tonto). As is expected of crude distillation, the effluent   is discharged into the stream thus polluting the water downstream and the entire catchment, affecting aquatic life and the ecosystem.

The wetland’s buffer zones too have been taken over, meaning that its filtering function is either dead or has been disrupted.

This degradation is prevalent in the various places where this investigative environmental writer visited during the field research.

Further upstream, Kanyabukanja wetland in Karungu sub-county in Buhweju also has been reclaimed and is nearly extinct. The entire papyrus cover has been depleted and the buffer zones converted into farmlands.  The wetland, which residents say was about 200 metres wide in the 1970s, today is only a shy stream that splits a cattle farm of the encroacher into two parts.

Local leaders and environmental officers told this writer that they have tried to stop the encroacher but political interference and corruption in the justice system have rendered their efforts futile.

They said he has been arrested several times and taken to court but he is always discharged and returns to resume the degradation.

During the visit to the site, the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) mapping pillars erected to demarcate the wetland were found right in the middle of the degraded part, confirming the encroachment on the buffer zone.

At Nyabirerema footbridge, a few metres upstream, a mother of four, identified as Gertrude Busingye, was found washing clothes in the stream, with all the waste water being poured back. Gertrude said that about 30 years ago, the stream was so big that one could hardly cross it at that point because of the huge volume of water.

Residents would use two parallel poles placed across the raging stream to facilitate the foot crossing.

However following sustained degradation in the last three decades, the stream has so shrunk that the water volume today cannot even fill up the culvert installed by the local government administration. The water level is hardly a foot above the ground.

There are waterfalls about 500 metres upstream that give the spot an exciting scenery. However the excitement is diminished by the imminent extinction of the falls.

Both sides of the wetland have been degraded and the resultant silting has narrowed the volume of the stream water. The removal of the vegetation cover has exposed water to direct sunlight leading to rapid evaporation. 

Vegetation retains water in a wetland and releases it gradually. Therefore removal of the vegetation weakens the wetland’s retention capacity and makes water flow away faster making the area dry or water stressed, an ingredient of climate change.

Environmental degradation of the Rwizi catchment is confirmed upstream and midstream where this writer was able to reach. The writer received several accounts of similar degradation further downstream but could not verify them due to time and logistical constraints to cover the entire catchment up to the shores of Lake Victoria.

But several corroborative accounts suggest degradation is taking place in the river’s entire catchment right from the source in the remote hills of Buhweju in western Uganda, down southwards to Kyotera in the Central region where the Rwizi pours its water into Lake Victoria.

Drivers of encroachment and degradation

High population growth has been the key driver of environmental degradation as people invade wetlands to reclaim more land for agriculture and settlement due to increasing human and animal populations.

Agriculture is the mainstay of Uganda’s economy and employs about 72 percent of the population, contributes 27% of GDP and 47% of the country’s exports.

Uganda’s population has grown at about 3.2% annually since 2000. According to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs Population Division (2017), Uganda’s population will be 64 million by 2030 and 106 million by 2050.

This forecasts increased demand for more land to grow food and the most likely alternative to secure additional arable land will be invasion and degradation of water resources. 

The pressure for arable land will drive more people into wetlands, water bodies and forests thus escalating environmental degradation and climate change. 

Buhweju district environment officer Clementia Birungi, said during the interview with this writer in Nsiika town, that she had done all she could possibly do to stop wetland degradation in the district but lack of collective support from other departments of government such as police and courts have frustrated her interventions. She said police and courts pay little attention to cases of environmental degradation and climate change. Birungi said even after arresting the encroachers and handing them to police and courts, they are always released on bond and bail and the case eventually collapses due to lack of prosecution.

The encroachers return to continue the assault on environment.

Besides, Ms Birungi cited political interference hindering the fight against environmental degradation. She said encroachers have political god-fathers who protect them from prosecution

Some encroachers are influential local leaders. An attempt to stop or apprehend them may attract the wrath from higher levels of the political leadership who frustrate the investigations and prosecution process.

Further to that, Clementia said, underfunding by government to the ministry of Water and Environment undermines the efforts by environment enforcement personnel to visit and investigate all cases of wetland degradation in the district.

“Environmental degradation must be fought in a collaborative partnership. You can’t do it alone. Some districts are not bothered about degradation of wetlands.  When you tell encroachers here to vacate wetlands, they ask you why you are pursuing only them yet people in other districts are using wetlands. It makes it hard to prevent degradation or implement restoration of wetlands,” Ms Birungi reasoned.

She cited an example of the Nyakafumura-Kyeirungu wetland where encroachers were arrested and taken to court. She said court refused to visit the scene of the degraded wetland and eventually ruled that the environmentalists failed to prove degradation against  the accused.

“Yet there are NEMA pillars erected in the degraded wetland,” Ms Birungi noted.

According to the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) Senior Environment Support Officer for Mbarara City Mr Jeconious Musingwire, River Rwizi has lost 60% of its catchment due to encroachment and poor agricultural practices which have accelerated soil erosion from the exposed banks and hills causing silting of the river.

The degradation of wetlands has reduced the quality and quantity of the river’s water downstream. 

Physical observations at the National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC) treatment plant at Nyamitanga bridge in Mbarara City confirm this hypothesis. The river is unable to provide enough water for the NWSC foot valves to suck it and feed it into the pipes to the reservoirs.

Mbarara City Principal Water Engineer Eng. Samuel Akol confirmed the diminishing volume of water in the river, which he said has become a big challenge to their operations.

“When drought starts, the water level drops far below our foot valves. The valves cannot reach the water below to suck it and pump it into the pipes. What we do we place sandbags in the river to retain the flowing little water to try to raise the volume to allow foot valves suck it up to the pipes,” said Eng. Akol. With Mbarara turning into a city and the emerging urbanisation in the outskirts, demand for water will increase thus escalating the scarcity and making the need for restoration of the river catchment and sustainable water management systems more critical than ever before.

Interventions to save River Rwizi

The diminishing water volume has drawn attention of various stakeholders who have since developed plans to restore the Rwizi catchment and ensure sustainable quantity and quality of water for both industrial and domestic consumption.  World Wide Fund for Nature UK and its WWF Uganda Country Office with other partners such as Anheuser-Busch InBev (ABInBev) and its subsidiary Nile Breweries Uganda, Dutch Fund for Climate Development, government of Uganda and NEMA among others have provided technical and financial support for implementation of a project codenamed “Scaling up Integrated Catchment-Based Management in River Rwizi to benefit People, Climate and Nature.”

The project is aimed at restoring the Rwizi catchment and ensure sustainable quantity and quality of water using nature-based solutions.

Six sites have been set up mid-stream to monitor the quantity and quality of water in the river. The monitoring points have been established at Nyaruteme-Itojo in Ntungamo; Nyakambu-Kanyabukanja in Sheema and Nile Breweries plant at Ruharo, Stock Farm Kihumuro, Bishop Stuart University- Katete in Mbarara city and Rukuuba-Kaburangire in Isingiro district.

Many encroachers have been evicted from several wetlands. There are ongoing initiatives to have more encroachers vacate the degraded buffer zones to allow restoration and regeneration of the river’s catchment.

It’s a double-edged approach. In some cases, people have been or are being persuaded to voluntarily leave the degraded zones. However the recalcitrant encroachers will be forcibly removed, according to the project implementers.

Midstream in Kakigaani in Rwampara, residents who have been degrading the river banks through cultivation, have been offered alternative sources of income to encourage them to leave the buffer zone.

During a field visit to the Kakigaani site on 29^th March  2022, residents testified that they had been given heifers and other support under the project as alternative sources of livelihood to leave the river banks.

Head of the Kakigaani Church of Uganda Parish Rev. Robert Twinomujuni was found feeding some of the heifers given to the church community under the Rwizi restoration project.

“They gave us heifers, which now provide us with milk and cow dung to improve our diet and soil fertility for better crop yields. People who were digging up the river banks left and are now engaged in the alternative income projects the partners gave them,” Rev. Twinomujuni said during the interview at the church site.     

To stop further crop cultivation which distorts the soil structure, the residents were offered the alternative of planting Nappier grass for pasture along the river banks. The grass is planted once and the farmer keeps only harvesting the pasture, which does not interrupt the soil arrangement to destabilise the river bank. 

The communities on hilly areas were given water tanks to harvest rain and stop the runoff that often washes away the fertile top soil from hills down to the Rwizi, thus silting up the river.

“We encouraged the people living near the river banks to plant Nappier grass which preserves environment. In upland, we installed 10 rain water harvesting tanks for the communities. The tanks harvest the rain water and stop erosion of soil from the hills down to the river,” Barnabas Mubangizi from Victoria Water Management Zone told this writer during the field visit in Kakigaani.

The Local Council chairman for Rutooma village, Asaph Kyotera, said under implementation of the catchment restoration project, the local residents were also taught good agronomics to bolster their soils using rain water.  

  “We were taught how to trap the runoff water for our crops. We dug trenches to channel rainwater to collection points and we use it to water our crops,” Kyotera said.

Immaculate Kimbareeba, a mother and resident of Kacuucu cell in Kakigaani, said the water tanks have saved them from walking long distances to collect water from the river as had been the case previously.

She appealed for more support of alternative livelihood for people who were living in and earning from the buffer zone.

“We need more support such as goats and heifers to give us alternative income for sustenance,” Kimbareeba said during the interview at her home in Kacuucu village.  

Early this year, Nile Breweries and its parent company Anheuser-Busch (ABInBev) offered funding for implementation of the third phase for restoration of the catchment. Under this phase the project targets restoration of 1400 hectares of landscape in six sub-counties of Ndeija, Nyakayojo, Rugando, Bubaare, Shuuku and Kagango and create 18km buffer zone along the river banks.

Announcing the Shs2.2 funding at Kakigaani site in Rwampara district in March this year, Nile Breweries Director of Legal and Corporate Affairs Onapito Ekomoloit said the brewery company had committed over Shs3b since the Rwizi restoration project started in 2019.  

While launching the project’s third phase in Kakigaani on the same day, the Director of Water Resources Management in Ministry of Water and Environment, Dr Florence Adong, said government has identified Rwizi as top priority that requires urgent attention.  “When the ministry of Water and Environment made assessment of water resources at most risk in 2019, Rwizi was the first. It was top on the risk scale. That’s why government made River Rwizi catchment a pilot project for water sources restoration. Government will create an environment protection force. Government will also restructure NEMA and have it in every district, demarcate river banks, wetlands and forests,” Dr Adong said.

Nile Breweries and its parent company ABInBev has built gabion walls at its plant near River Rwizi bank at Ruharo in Mbarara.

“The gabions stabilise the river banks and prevent silting which affects water flow. The Source Stabilisation process starts from upstream in Kakigaani. We are partnering with other stakeholders and we have had community engagement to protect the catchment,” Nile Breweries Environment and Safety Manager at the Ruharo-based plant Adam Wilson Emaru told this writer during an interview at the factory site. “The gabions also stabilise the water level to give us accurate readings. We installed metering pillars to monitor the volume and water flow to know how much water is in the river. Generally the river’s water level is reducing. We take the readings daily and submit aggregated monthly data to the Ministry of Water and Environment for analysis,” he added.

Impact of interventions

Mbarara City Environment Officer Musingwire said the Nyakambu wetland at the Mbarara-Sheema boundary has been restored. Restoration of Kashasha wetland in Rwampara district is ongoing and recovery was at 75 percent by end of 2021.

He added that restoration of Bujaga wetland system in Rwampara started in 2020 and recovery was at 30 percent by end of last year. He said NEMA is monitoring the process. He observed that to restore River Rwizi to its original status, all wetlands in the catchment must be recovered from encroachers.

A report on monitoring and evaluation of Rwizi catchment restoration released last year says that by 2020 at least 316 hectares of the catchment had been restored while 616 hectares had been mapped for restoration by 2021.

The joint report by the Uganda government, Nile Breweries and World Wide Fund says a buffer of 18km has been created in midstream of the Rwizi through sustainable river bank and land use in six sub-counties of Ndeija, Rugando, Nyakayojo, Shuuku Kagango and Bubaare.

By 2020, the report further states, 451 households were already benefitting from the implementation activities while 625 more recruited by end of 2021. 

The report says 3.4km of the river bank were restored in 2020 while 8.4km were mapped for regeneration and 18km mapped for restoration last year. 

By end of 2021, the report says, 95 households were accessing clean water following the construction of 10 rain harvesting tanks for the local communities.

About 60 farmers in the buffer zone are moving away to allow restoration and stabilisation of the river bank. They are vacating 92 hectares of the river bank in the midstream villages of Biti, Kanyangi, Kakigaani and Karora in Rwampara where the pilot restoration site has been established.    

Mubangizi, a water analyst from Victoria Water Management Zone, told this writer that 2.5 hectares of the river bank in Kakigaani have been reclaimed from encroachers who were doing farming and destabilising the buffer zone. He said they were given alternative sources of livelihood and they moved away voluntarily.

He said there are ongoing discussions with others who are still cultivating in the buffer zone to leave the river bank. “We have trained about 400 farmers in six villages, linked to the Rwizi catchment, in digging contour trenches to trap surface rain water from washing away the fertile top soil and the mulch into the river,” Mubangizi told this writer during the field visit in Kakigaani.

The trenches trap the surface water which sinks into the soil and is retained to benefit crops. The trenches also stop the surface water from washing away the mulch which prevents weeds.     

There is a standing cabinet directive to Uganda Land Commission to cancel all titles in wetlands and for the encroachers to vacate.

 This process is ongoing, according to the ministry of Water and Environment.

“The Ministry is trying to demarcate all the wetlands. We are sensitising local communities on dangers of degrading the environment,” the ministry’s spokesman Charles Muwonge told this writer in 2021.