NILE BASIN CAPACITY BUILDING NETWORK Nile Ecosystems Valuation for Wise-Use (Nile-Eco-VWU) Regional training course on “Wetlands Ecosystems nd th services and environmental flows”, 2 -5 November, 2015 Kampala, Uganda 2015 Funded By: Kampala - Uganda, 2nd – 5th November, 2015 Nile Eco-VWU - Kickoff Workshop 2015 Table of Contents 1. Nile-Eco-VWU Project ............................................................................................. 1 1.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 1 1.2 Course Organisation ................................................................................................... 1 1.3 Course Objectives ....................................................................................................... 2 1.4 Programme .................................................................................................................. 2 1.5 Participants .................................................................................................................. 2 2. Training Course Progress ....................................................................................... 2 3. Course Evaluation.................................................................................................... 9 4. Conclusions ............................................................................................................ 13 Kickoff Workshop 2015 1. Nile-Eco-VWU Project 1.1 Introduction NBCBN in coordination with Makerere University and its regional and international partner institutes developed a research proposal on: Nile Ecosystems valuation for wise Use (Nile Eco- VWU) which was submitted to CGIAR-WLE-Nile programme for funding. The proposal was accepted for funding in early December 2014 and implementation of activities started in January 2015 for a time frame of two years. This regional collaborative project aims to develop and test integrated tools for ecosystem services, valuation, and assessment that can be applied at local and regional scales within the Nile Basin. The Nile-ECO-VWU is a collaborative research Project of 10 international and regional consortium member institutions and partners (including: NBCBN, Makerere University, Egerton University, UNESCO-Chair for water Resources of Sudan, Ain shams university, UNESCO-IHE, Delft and ITC- University of Twente, Netherlands, Szent István University-Hungary and Water- Cap/Kenya). The project started officially in January 2015 and expected to end by December 2016. Ecosystem services are the benefits to people from nature. These benefits include food, water purification, carbon sequestration, soil stabilization, recreation, cultural values, among others. The contribution of natural ecosystems to these benefits is often un-quantified and unmeasured, but the value of such benefits is gradually becoming more apparent as human populations grow and the demand for natural resources increases. Ecosystems can provide for many human needs now and into the future. Ecosystems services are threatened by river regulation, with diversion of water from rivers causing considerable environmental costs, particularly to floodplains and downstream wetlands. Increasing realisation that river regulation negatively affects aquatic ecosystems, compromising ecosystem services flow from these ecosystems, has led to proactive environmental flow management for ecological outcomes. The environmental flows and water allocation of each river aims to ensure that the long-term average volume of water available to the environment is maintained (Arthington and Pusey, 2003, Reid and Brooks, 2000). Environmental flows fit well into multiple levels of the hierarchy of water management, ranging from international policy to river-scale flow management. Ecosystems sustained by environmental flows underpin many aspects of human well-being. Nevertheless, ecosystems and the water needed to sustain them are often not considered in the management of water resources. Wetland environmental water allocation differs from that of rivers in several aspects. Variability of water quantity in wetlands is associated with the presence of habitats. There is generally a close connection between water quantity and the spatial extent of wetland habitat. While the determination of environmental flows for rivers generally occurs at large scales, with the examination of entire river systems, environmental water allocations for wetlands may sometimes occur at much smaller spatial scales. To provide the required support to the research team members and build the capacities of the ecosystems professionals in the Nile basin, NBCBN in collaboration with Makerere University and UNESCO-IHE organized a regional training course on “Wetlands Ecosystems services and environmental flows”. 1.2 Course Organisation The training course was organized by the (NBCBN) as the Nile-Eco-VWU project coordinator and with the support of Makerere University as the local organizer. The meeting venue was Africana Hotel, Kampala, Uganda in the period from 2nd to 5th November 2015. 1 Nile Eco-VWU - Kickoff Workshop 2015 Organising Team Dr. Amel M. Azab, Manager, NBCBN Dr. Al Sayed I. Diwedar, Deputy Manager, NBCBN Mrs. Nashwa Nader, Secretary &Financial Officer, NBCBN Mrs. Namitala Diana, Workshop Secretary 1.3 Course Objectives The project is designed to be an integrated capacity development programme focusing on both research and training activities. Therefore, a training programme was designed within this project to build capacity of researchers and practitioners in the field of wetlands ecosystems services and economic valuation. The first regional training course of the training programme is on: “Wetlands Ecosystems services and environmental flows”. It is one of a series of four courses that will be organised under the Nile Eco-VWU project, with a main focus to strengthen the capacities of the project young research teams and other participants and water professionals from the Nile basin in wise wetlands ecosystems management and economic valuation. By the end of this first course the participants should be able to: Get Better understanding of the different wetlands ecosystems services with different case studies from the Nile Basin Get a clear introduction on to the wetlands environmental flows and understand the difference between Rivers and Wetland environmental water allocation. Learn the different methodologies to determine the wetlands environmental water allocations. Get knowledge on the different uses of existing conceptual and mathematical models of Environmental Flows such as Environmental Flows Decision Support System (EFDSS). 1.4 Programme The programme was designed in a way to present to all participants the concepts of ecosystems services and environmental flow interaction and relationship. A field visit to one of the ramser sites in Uganda was executed; the site is MABAMBA BAY WETLAND. The main objective of this visit was to give more insight about how to link the wetlands services to the environmental flows. Annex (1) includes the programme. 1.5 Participants The participants in this training course were selected project research team members from Kenya, Uganda, Egypt and Ethiopia in addition to selected participants from the other Nile basin countries, in total 23 water professional attended this course. 2. Training Course Progress Day 1 - Opening The training course started by welcome word from Prof. Kenneth Irvine, UNESCO-IHE, the main facilitator of the training course. After that, the course participants were introduced. Day 1: The training course was started by a presentation on “Linking human impacts on aquatic ecosystems to ecosystem 2 Nile Eco-VWU - Kickoff Workshop 2015 health and services” by Dr. Kenneth Irvine, this was followed by another presentation focusing on the aquatic ecosystems types titled “Types of aquatic ecosystems and associated pressures and stressors”. A plenary session took place afterwards on the above presented topics, facilitated Dr. Kenneth Irvine. After that Dr. Rebecca Tharme give a presentation to introduce the environmental floes titled “Introduction to environmental flows”, this was followed by another presentation on “Availability of present-day and historical data”. After that Dr. Rebecca Tharme discussed the data needed and limitation in her presentation titled “Preliminary presentation of future data needs, rationale and limitations”. Day 2: This day started by recapping for day one by Dr. Kenneth Irvine, then Dr. Rebecca Tharme give a presentation on “Environmental flow methodologies”. The social process was discussed through the presentation of Mrs. Teddy Tindamanyire on “The social process and stakeholder dimensions of environmental flows”. Dr. Rebecca Tharme focused on the environmental flows for different water systems in the presentation titled “Environmental flow methodologies for flowing and non- flowing water systems (rivers and floodplain wetlands, lakes, other wetlands)”. This was followed by a discussion session on “main strengths and deficiencies of environmental flow methodologies for project study sites”, Facilitated by Dr. Kenneth Irvine and Dr. Rebecca Tharme The afternoon session was started by presentation on “Basin scale flow management and decision support”, by Dr. Rebecca Tharme, after that an interactive session on “ecosystems services and environmental flows” took place, where the participants were divided to four groups working on five case