During the week of 30 September through 4 October, the WatPlaG consortium (FutureWater, Waterschap Hunze and Aa’s, UNESCO-IHE, and WE-consult) visited Chimoio and Beira for two seminars, and hands-on training in using the WEAP model.

Beira_seminar_20131002

This WatPlaG project mission started with a general project discussion on Monday at ARA-Centro, Beira. For the remainder of the day, the focus was on “Permits and Fees for Polluters”. This topic was well presented by Waterschap Hunze and Aa’s (Jan den Besten and Bert Jager). They gave a presentation about the experience of polluter permits and fees in the Netherlands, and had a discussion about how a system of permits and fees for polluters could be useful for ARA-Centro.

On Tuesday 1 October the WatPlaG consortium held a seminar in Chimoio, and on Wednesday 2 October a similar seminar was organized in Beira. The objectives of both seminars were to obtain a better understanding of the problems that ARA-Centro has to deal with, the ambitions of ARA-Centro, and the various stakeholders that ARA-Centro wants to involve in their decision making. The ambitions of ARA-Centro can be summarized as follows:

  • Advisory role
  • Give advise, based on quantitative information from water planning tools
  • Involve stakeholders in their decision making
  • Permits and fees for polluters
  • Being self-supporting for their finances

During both seminars, FutureWater gave a general project description and a presentation on models/tools to support decision making, UNESCO-IHE (Pieter van der Zaag) gave a presentation on data and information needs in support of trans-boundary water cooperation, and Waterschap Hunze and Aa’s (Bert Jager) presented experiences from the Netherlands in using permits and fees for polluters. Additionally, the following stakeholders/projects had a presentation about their organization/company, and their development plans: FIPAG, Companhia do Vanduzi, ProIrri, Acucareira de Mafambisse, and the BAGC.

Pungwe_river

Thursday and Friday were reserved for hands-on training ARA-Centro staff in using the WEAP model. This training was organized by FutureWater (Peter Droogers). FutureWater will assist ARA-Centro staff in building a WEAP model for the Pungwe basin. This helps them to take decisions based on quantitative information.

For more information regarding the WatPlaG project, please contact Peter Droogers, Wilco Terink, or have a look at the WatPlaG project website.