1. Water Resource Management “Uganda’s Experience”
ITU Workshop on
“ICT as an Enabler for Smart Water Management”
(Luxor, Egypt, April 2013)
Water Resource Management “Uganda’s Experience”
Nakiguli Helen Cynthia,
Environment Management Specialist, Uganda Communications Commission (UCC),
Luxor, Egypt, April 2013

2. National water and sewerage corporation-NWSC Challenges The next steps
Content
Introduction
National water and sewerage corporation-NWSC
Challenges
The next steps
Luxor, Egypt, April 2013

3. NWSC DWD D-WRM Introduction
The water sector formation in Uganda- Min. of H₂o and Environment – political leadership
Provides water and sewerage services on a commercial basis in gazetted urban areas. So far 23 districts.
NWSC
Handles all water service provision in the rest of the country.
Not commercial .
Work with local councils- to pipe water, boreholes etc
DWD
Focuses on the water resource- availability and adequacy.
D-WRM
Luxor, Egypt, April 2013

4. .....introduction Main water sources; L. Victoria, R. Nile and
(R. Rwizi, R. Kwania, gravity flow from the Rwenzori mountains etc- for the urban provision)
Luxor, Egypt, April 2013

5. NWSC
Is equipped with an automated system for efficient operational activities
Does not focus on water for agriculture (purely urban),
35% of its costs is electricity bills- especially for the bigger plants,
The bigger water treatment plants are automated,
Serves 3.4m people with H₂O coverage of 70%(June 2012)
Luxor, Egypt, April 2013

6. NWSC- Automated System
The NWSC uses;
A central ArcGIS server for;
Management of the Geodatabase- (service points, piped network, roads, telecom cables, sewer lines, power lines, etc)
Integrated to the billing system and call centre,
Other operations; H₂O consumption/distribution, leakage and network failures, defective meter distribution
Luxor, Egypt, April 2013

7. …..cont’d
An AutoCAD system for primary creation of device points-basic initial drawings,
Pro-poor intervention- prepaid metering in the urban-poor areas
Work in progress – developing system for district/zone metering, adding network sensors, improving hydraulic modelling, revenue management, network expansion etc.
Luxor, Egypt, April 2013

8. Challenges Poor performance of the data networks,
Constrained raw water resources-intermittent water supply,
Non revenue water-illegal connections, old pipe work (system overwhelmed),
Poor inter-agency coordination and information sharing (e.g. city authorities, different utilities – power/water, )
Luxor, Egypt, April 2013

9. ….challenges
Poor/inadequate systems support from vendors – most applications / equipment are imported, with limited local maintenance operations.
Skills sets and competencies are still very limited.
Luxor, Egypt, April 2013

10. The next steps.....towards smart water management
Focus on increasing the use of ICT in water management, specifically GIS, Hydraulic modeling, asset management, network monitoring etc- governments should invest in efficiency,
Policies, standards and guidelines in place
More Capacity / skills development
Luxor, Egypt, April 2013

11. …..next steps
Increased focus on Water for Production, at Ministry level. Focus of water for livestock, irrigation etc- automated system
Enhancing regional and international collaborations towards smart water management,
Promote R&D on smart technologies in water management
Luxor, Egypt, April 2013

12. Thank you ?
Luxor, Egypt, April 2013