A policy framework for surface water and shallow groundwater allocation, with special reference to the Komadougou Yobe River Basin, northeast Nigeria
| Date | 01 November 2006 |
| Published date | 01 November 2006 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/pad.4230150203 |
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND DEVELOPMENT, VOL.
15,103-120
(1995)
A
policy framework
for
surface water and shallow
groundwater allocation, with special reference to the
Komadougou Yobe River Basin, northeast Nigeria
RICHARD C. CARTER
Water Management Department, Silsoe College, Cranfield University
SUMMARY
The Hadejia and Jama’are rivers rise
on
the Basement Complex
of
Kano and Bauchi States,
and
on entering the area underlain by sedimentary rocks, they
lose
most
of
their water in their
passage through Jigawa, Yobe and
Bomo
to
Lake Chad. Water resource developments on the
Hadejia branch are now
so
far advanced that effectively the entire
flow
is
consumed before the
confluence, where the river changes name
to
the Yobe.
These
developments have taken
place
in
the absence
of
a
coherent, integrated water management
policy,
either nationally, for
the
river
basin, or
at
a
local
level. The Jama’are tributary is
so
far
undeveloped, although this is unlikely
to
remain
so
for
much longer. In this article
proposals
for
an
analytical framework
for
water
allocation policy in the river basin
are
made, together
with
an analysis
of
the
characteristics
of
the
major existing water-using activities. The article argues, not
for
a
particular water allocation
policy, but for clarity and transparency
in
the development
of
such policy
by
the relevant
authorities in Nigeria.
INTRODUCTION
The Hadejia-Jama’are-Yobe river system drains
a
catchment of approximately
85,000
km2
in northeast Nigeria (Figure 1). Under natural conditions (i.e. in their unregulated
state), and prior to the drought that began in the early 1960s (Hess
et
al.,
1995), the
two
major tributaries, the Hadejia and the Jama’are, contributed approximately
40
per
cent and
50
per cent respectively of the total river flow leaving the hard rock area of the
upper catchment (the remainder coming from minor tributaries of the main rivers)
(Schultz, 1976). Once the rivers enter the middle and lower basin, underlain by
Quaternary Chad Formation sediments, they lose water all the way to Lake Chad
(NEAZDP, 1990). Since the early 1970s major water resource developments on the
Hadejia branch (the Tiga dam, Kano River Project phase I, Challawa Gorge dam,
Hadejia Valley Irrigation Project, and extensive pumped farmer-managed irrigation in
Kano and Jigawa States), coinciding with reduced rainfall, have sharply reduced flows
in this tributary,
so
that now the river flow at Gashua consists almost exclusively of
Jama’are water. For some years now there has been the prospect of the construction of
regulatory works on the Jama’are tributary (the Kafin Zaki dam), and the possibility
of the development
of
irrigation schemes in the Jama’are valley that would further
reduce the river flows at and beyond Gashua.
Richard C. Carter
is
Senior Lecturer and Consultant in Water Supply and Management at the Water
Management Department, Silsoe College, Cranfield University, Silsoe, Bedford, MK45 4DT, UK.
CCC
0271-2075/95/020103-18
0
1995
by
John
Wiley
&
Sons,
Ltd.
Figure
1.
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