KnoWat (Knowing Water Better: towards fairer and more sustainable access to natural resources)

The goal of the KnoWat project is to strengthen water governance processes in Rwanda, Senegal and Sri Lanka through building capacity in water accounting, and developing and testing a methodology for the assessment of water tenure. The originality is the integration of water accounting methods through remote sensing technologies and water tenure assessment to refine the accuracy of the water accounting and ensure no one is left behind, in particular the most vulnerable groups who might have unrecognized water tenure arrangements. Water tenure is defined as “The relationships, whether legally or customarily defined, between people, as individuals or groups, with respect to water resources”. The focus of the water resources assessment is different in each project country. In Rwanda, several scenarios of water allocation are explored in the context of increasing competition among water users in the Yanze, Muvumba and lower Akagera catchments. In Sri Lanka the assessment will analyze the different strategies to manage water in a more sustainable manner in the Malwathu river basin. In Senegal the project will seek to better understand the interlinkages between water and land tenure in the delta of the Senegal river basin.