Agriculture minister Calle Schlettwein said the City of Windhoek’s water reclamation works is one of the world’s first.
During the launch of the hydrogeological Map of Namibia on Friday in Windhoek, Schlettwein said the planned upgrading of Windhoek’s reclamation works would put the city ahead of the rest.
Schlettwein said Namibia is at the forefront with several aspects in water utilisation and management.
The minister said Namibia could pride itself on outstanding water quality and that water supplied to households adheres to international water quality standards.
“Namibians can consume it without any further treatment. Indeed, [it is] a great achievement and not found the African Continent commonly,” he added.
Schlettwein also said the ministry has started with artificial water recharge in aquifers that supply water to Windhoek.
“With such an approach, we can utilise surface water resources (dams that supply Windhoek with water) much more efficiently and improve the yields by reducing losses through evaporation,” the minister said.
The hydrogeological map and the handbook contain reliable and up to date information about the occurrence, quality, utilisation and vulnerability of groundwater resources.
The first hydrogeological map and its accompanying handbook were first published in December 2001.
An unrevised second edition was released in 2011.
The map provides an overview of available resources to assist in the process of national development planning.
“For the research and specialist institutions, the map, the handbook and accompanying digital applications offer a wealth of information to illuminate the further research work and carrying out exploration development,” Schlettwein said.
According to the minister, finding groundwater resources is the first step in a complicated network of interrelated functions that need to be considered in any groundwater management plan.
“We are assuring full aquifers when surface water resources are depleted and improving the water supply’s security. We are leaders on the African Continent in this regard,” he said.
He further said infrastructure, management capacity, power to pump water, security of supply and reservoir to store, water quality, sanitation, pollution, environmental aspects and now climate change are but a few of those.
Schlettwein emphasised the aspect of data, saying that this was collected and converted into handy management tools is dynamic.
Because of the importance of data, he said, it must be protected, but it must at the same time be available and affordably so.
“Data sets must be continuously updated to remain relevant, and they must be comprehensive. These are prerequisites for sound decision making. There is no doubt, the better the factual data, the higher the probability for good decisions,” he said.
Through the directorate of water resources management, Namibia is a party to the Sadc Groundwater Management Institute (Sadc-GMI). In 2016, the World Bank gave US$10million to fund water management.
The 16 Sadc states received a combined US$2.2million, with Namibia getting US$150,000.
“Expressed differently, Namibia benefited from 1.5 % of the total envelope, which is a tiny fraction. Nevertheless, we can say that the 1.5 % was spent well and made available old and new geohydrological data, which is immensely important for sustainable planning and managing groundwater resources,” Schlettwein said.
