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It’s Bula vinaka once again from the Water sector!!!!

We have resumed work after the festive season and already into attending meetings, doing field work on some remote Pacific islands and also trying to accommodate the various requests sent in regarding water and sanitation, potential water resource options and water demand management, to name a few. We’re pausing here to take a final look at 2005...

In this Issue, we bring you news from the HELP Symposium in Nelson New Zealand from the 7th to the 11th of November, 2005 and there is also a story on the Pacific HYCOS.

So, happy reading everyone!!! We hope that you too have had a fruitful second half of the year 2005 with regards to your work programmes and that you are all geared up to face the challenges of 2006.

Staff News Sanjeshni Naidu, has just recently been recruited as the web person for the Pacific Partnership Initiative on Sustainable Water Management.

We have also recruited Davendra Nath as Project Officer and Mitesh Mudaliar as project assistant for the Water & Safety Plans Project, to be run in collaboration with WHO.

Our Water Quality Officer, Tasleem Hassan tied the knot on the 25th of December 2005 at his hometown in Ba and we wish him and his spouse the best of times in the coming years.

Mathias Kleppen has come on board in place of Sarah as the Water Demand Management Officer and WATNews would like to take this opportunity to welcome Mathias.

Volume 6 Issue 2December 2005

In this Issue

Staff News

Viwa Island water resources survey

Pacific HYCOS

Hydrology for Environment, and Policy Symposium, UNESCO in collaboration with Landcare, NIWA, Tasman District Council, Cawthron and SOPAC.

Programme for Water Governance

Announcement

Water Quotes

Recent Updates

New Additions to Water

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Sanjeshni Naidu

Davendra Nath

Mitesh Mudaliar

Tasleem & Zaveen Hasan

Mathias Kleppen

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Viwa Island water resources survey, Fiji

The Department of Biology at the University of the South Pacific has embarked on a project to restore and protect the native biodiversity on the island of Viwa in the Fiji group, and enhance the sustainability of its people.

The Viwa Restoration Project was launched recently and is the first time such a project will be carried out in Fiji. The accessibility of Viwa Island to the Capital City of Suva, coupled with the island’s easy terrain and small size (60ha), makes it an ideal site for achieving awareness-raising, community education and research objectives. Viwa also has the potential to become an important eco-tourism destination where people can view several rare endangered species, such as the Fijian ground frog, the banded iguana and ground birds.’’

According to Dr Morley, Project co-ordinator and Lecturer in Conservation Biology, the island could also be established as Fiji’s first community-based terrestrial wildlife sanctuary. This project will also have numerous socio-economic benefits for the people of Viwa by providing employment, improving the water supply, and improving health standards.SOPAC Water Sector was invited to carry out a water resources assessment of the island and to

make a recommendation to the project team as to how the water and sanitation standards on the island could be improved.

The resident water engineer and the water resources officer accompanied the USP project team to the island to carry out the survey and put together a report for the USP project team.

FindingsAfter a series of conversations with the ladies in the village a few important points were being repeatedly highlighted in the areas of water resources and water supply, and sanitation and hygiene.

Almost all of the houses within the village boundary either had a water tank at home or used the community tank for their water supply. Most of the tanks connected to the houses were constructed through a Ministry of Health Initiative in the early 1980s. These water tanks were supposed to be made to a standard size, but upon closer investigation, it was discovered that the tanks were not symmetrical.

There were also some homes where the family had purchased their own water tanks and were fully aware of their responsibilities with regards to repair and maintenance of the water tanks, where and when the need arose.

SOPAC Water Engineer with villager Usaia, surveying underground water storage cistern at Viwa island, Bau Tailevu.

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While most of the village houses have water tanks, the village youth still use the pool for bathing and a group of them took a bath during the interview. In most homes, they use the water from the tank for cooking and drinking purposes only, while the pool was still the option for bathing.

The ladies all mentioned that the ideal water supply system for them would be to have household connections with a shower and running water in the house, and they all mentioned flush toilets as their ideal sanitation facility.

The majority of ladies spoke of the need to upgrade the current water supply system on the island, because for most of them, they have had to rely heavily on the communal tap stands for their water supply when their own individual water tanks ran dry, and the current system seemed to be lacking much-needed maintenance.

It was brought to the attention of the ladies that having a flush toilet with a septic tank would have its advantages and disadvantages and as such, in the case of Viwa Island, the disadvantages would outweigh the advantages. Thus the better option would be a dry sanitation facility due to the lack of water availability and its unique island setting.

Discharge from septic tanks would eventually find its way into the sea, either via direct drainage channels or through the groundwater, therefore having a devastating effect on the marine ecosystem.

RecommendationsThe first recommendation would be to have a compost toilet constructed for use at the USP students’ home, proposed to be built shortly. In this way, the students using the facility will maintain the system and keep it in good working condition. This arrangement would also allow members of the village to see the technology for themselves and decide whether or not they would like to have a system set up at their respective homes.

Secondly, a maintenance mechanism should be put in place where the communal water tanks and the individual water tanks are re-sanded and re-plastered. The communal tank next to the Deacon’s house is in much need of repair. Almost two thirds of the base has begun to crack and a considerable amount of precious potable water is being wasted. A lot of the household water tanks also show signs of disrepair. Members of the village could work together for this purpose and there is no need to hire skilled labour as the villagers would be able to do the work themselves, provided they have the materials to work with.

Pacific Hydrological Cycle Observing System (Pacific-HYCOS)

The Pacific-HYCOS, one of the Pacific programmes funded under the ACP-EU Water Facility, aims to protect freshwater resources in Pacific Island Countries through the provision of appropriate water resources management systems. The Pacific-HYCOS is one of the regional components of the World Hydrological Cycle Observing System (WHYCOS), a World Meteorological Organization (WMO) programme targeting the improvement of basic observation activities, strengthening regional and international cooperation and promoting free exchange of data in the field of hydrology.

The Pacific-HYCOS project was developed by WMO in collaboration with the South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission (SOPAC) and in consultations with countries and territories in response to the hydrological needs of the region. It is expected to strengthen the human and technical capacity of National Hydrological Services (NHSs) for water resources management and to provide high quality and reliable information to decision-makers on integrated catchment and aquifer management and planning in 14 Pacific Island Countries. The participating countries are Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji Islands, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu whilst appropriate linkages will be made to the other Pacific island territories and states.

The call for implementation of the Pacific-HYCOS project has been a prominent outcome of the Pacific regional consultations for the 3rd World Water Forum as well as the Pacific Dialogue on Water and Climate that led to the Pacific Regional Action Plan on Sustainable Water Management (Pacific RAP) endorsed by the Pacific Forum Leaders Summit in August 2003.

Two thematic areas of the Pacific RAP, Theme 1: Water Resources Management and Theme 2: Island Vulnerability, specifically call for increasing water resource management capacity with respect to the intrinsic vulnerability of small island states to climatic extremes, of droughts and flooding, as well as, ENSO events and cyclones. Both themes explicitly state that the Pacific-HYCOS project should be implemented as a priority.

The Pacific-HYCOS project, which builds on the NZAID-supported Hydrological Training Programme (2004-2006), aims for each of the participating island nations to:

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• attain a common level of ability to assess and monitor the status/trend of their water resources, and to provide the water-related information and hazard warnings needed to support national social and economic development and environmental management;

• have established databases and information archives, maintained to acceptable standards that form the basis for sustained future data capture, information processing and dissemination for informed cross-sectoral decision making;

• improve the capacity to mitigate and plan for climate change and land-use impacts on freshwater resources at the catchment and national level.

The Project focuses on several core activities to be carried out including flood forecasting, water resources assessment in major rivers, water resources databases, drought forecasting, groundwater monitoring and assessment and water quality monitoring and assessment.

A Project Regional Centre (PRC) will provide technical support and training to augment and strengthen the national capacity in the participating countries. Suitable field sites will be established in selected critical catchments and aquifers and necessary equipment and base stations (water level

gauges, groundwater monitoring equipment, water quality testing systems etc) will be designed and installed. The WMO Geostationary Meteorological Satellite and Global Telecommunication System will be available to transfer data to a centralized database.

Training will be organized on the operation and maintenance of the equipment, collection and storage of data, creation of databases at national and regional levels, interpretation of information and data for useful end products, as well as the basics of surface and groundwater resources management.

The PRC will disseminate information using websites and satellite technology. WMO and SOPAC in collaboration with NHSs will assist the PRC to develop and implement Hydrological Information System for each selected river basin and aquifer.

Each country will have a watershed catchment or aquifer instrumented to enable the water resource to be properly studied over the duration of the project and beyond. The monitoring network will not only enable the response of the catchment or aquifer to climatic variability to be understood, which is essential for flood and drought management, but will also enable valuable water quality data to be collected. The impact of

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specific catchment or aquifer land use issues will be assessed as well as the performance and efficiency of water supply and wastewater infrastructure in terms of water quality. This approach will support the countries’ efforts towards Integrated Water Resources Management.

Data from these catchments and aquifers will be collected both nationally by the water management departments, but importantly also regionally using satellite linkages. This gives valuable data security to countries prone to extensive cyclone damage. Data capture will also be augmented by the use of communities in the catchments using school science programmes to assist in monitoring data, and will use this as an entry point to public education for water resources protection, and improved participatory catchment management. Project implementation and institutional arrangements will use existing and well-established networks and relationships to ensure strong national and regional co-ordination and open lines of communication among participating NHSs, the implementing agency and other stakeholders at national and regional level.

The project will also support the development and implementation of integrated water resources management plans through the implementation of

activities including improvement of data collection and dissemination, water quality and quantity monitoring, capacity building, and support to related research. As such the Pacific-HYCOS will contribute to the Global Environment Facility (GEF) funded project on Sustainable Integrated Water Resources Management in Pacific Island Countries.

Furthermore the project will support South-South collaboration through the Joint Caribbean-Pacific Programme for Action on Water & Climate, specifically making appropriate linkages to the Caribbean HYCOS project.

The 3-year project (2006-2009) with a total cost of 3,524,970 Euro will be implemented by SOPAC with its in-country counterparts at the NHSs in collaboration with WMO, UNESCO and the Fiji Meteorological Service. The EU Water Facility will fund up to 2,524,970 Euro with further contributions for the project provided through several regional programmes established by SOPAC and its partners including the NZAID-funded Water Quality Monitoring Programme (WHO, USP), Island Climate Update (NIWA), and Hydrological Training Programme (NIWA, WMO, UNESCO) as well as the ADB-funded Pacific Resource Centre on Water and Climate (Collaborative Programme on Water and

Climate).

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Hydrology for Environment, Life and Policy Symposium, UNESCO in collaboration with Landcare, NIWA, Tasman District Council, Cawthron and SOPAC

This event marked the first formal HELP event to take place in the Pacific region. The Symposium was hosted jointly by the New Zealand Crown Research Institute Landcare research Ltd. and UNESCO Apia Office, and was held in the city of Nelson, adjacent to the Motueka Demonstration HELP Basin, from 7 to 11 November 2005.

The Symposium focused on devising ways in which HELP can contribute to strengthening catchment area management practices in the Pacific considering the limited data collection and processing capacity in the region.

The Symposium was attended by a total of ten representatives of six Pacific high volcanic island countries (Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Cook Islands, Samoa, and Fiji) and Japan, as well as by a broad range of stakeholders and scientists working in and around the Motueka Basin area. Also taking part were representatives of the South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission (SOPAC), the Australasian HELP Regional Coordination Unit, NIWA (New Zealand’s Institute for Water and atmospheric Research), and the UNESCO regional Bureau for Science in Jakarta.

The Symposium was arranged to coincide with the Landcare Research Ltd. annual General Meeting of New Zealand Regional councils, allowing for an active and productive exchange during two days of shared sessions between the Pacific Island participants and around 80 catchment managers and scientists from across New Zealand.

Also included in the Symposium programme was a very comprehensive field trip to the Motueka HELP Demonstration Basin. The filed trip involved discussions with a very broad range of stakeholders, including forestry and farming communities, as well as several representatives of the local Iwi (Maori indigenous groups). Furthermore, Iwi representatives attending the sessions throughout the week provided additional perspective to the discussions.

The Pacific participants provided case studies of particular catchment management issues in their respective countries, and as part of the concluding

session, developed a series of draft frameworks for action under the heading “HELP in the Context of the Pacific Regional Action Plan on Sustainable Water Management – A Framework for Action”.

It is expected that these draft documents will form the basis for the development of HELP activities in the Pacific over the coming five years, as well as linking into new and emerging regional catchment management programmes. In this way, it is hoped that the contributions of the HELP programme will become an integrated and essential component in the development of integrated water resources management activities across the Pacific high island countries.

A proceedings document containing all presentations and discussions at the Symposium will be published by the UNESCO Apia Office and Landcare Research, Ltd. in early 2006.

[Hans Thulstrup, UNESCO Apia, Samoa]

Programme for Water Governance

The European Union has established a Programme for Water Governance (PfWG), for the three regions of Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific. A Pacific region submission was made in 2002 by SOPAC. The submission proposed three pilot exercises for water governance at different ‘levels’ or scales, namely: national, major utility and local catchment based.

FijiFiji was chosen as the country for the national water governance pilot, partly because of initiatives and commitments already made by the Government of Fiji. A workshop to develop a national water strategy for Fiji was held on the 13-14 December 2005. A water policy document has been drawn up for submission to Cabinet, and a next workshop is foreseen to discuss Fiji’s water legislation.

Solomon IslandsA scoping mission was carried out for the Solomon Islands and further consultation on a draft water policy is expected to take place in early to mid 2006.

KiribatiThe programme in Kiribati will build on the National Water Resources Strategy and linkages will be made to the Kiribati Adaptation Programme (KAP II) which comprises of a Water and Sanitation component supported by AUSAID.

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Announcement

3rd Hydrology Training Course, 12th—30th June 2006, Suva, Fiji Islands

SOPAC’s Community Lifelines Programme, in collaboration with UNESCO and WMO will be organising the third course of the Hydrological Training Programme for hydrological technicians from the Pacific region with funding provided by NZAID.

The 3rd Course of the Hydrology Training Programme, similar to the 2nd course, will be split into two groups: 1) for participants from high volcanic island countries, which are dominated by surface water resources, and 2) for participants from atoll and high limestone island countries, which are dominated by groundwater resources.

The Surface Water course will consist of 3 weeks of training from 12 June to 30 June 2006 at the SOPAC Secretariat’s training room in Suva, Fiji with participants in attendance from the Cook Islands, Fiji, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.

The Groundwater course will consist of 2 weeks of training from 19 June to 30 June 2006 at the

Mineral Resources Department Conference room (adjacent to the SOPAC premises) with participants in attendance from the above countries as well as Kiribati, Maldives, Niue, Tonga and Tuvalu.

Following participant’s recommendations there will be several joint sessions for both the Surface water and Groundwater groups in the 2nd and 3rd week of the course and joint field trips are foreseen to complete a water resources assessment on one of Fiji’s outer islands located near Suva.

The final course outline and other logistical information will be disbursed to trainees once these are finalised and should you wish further information regarding the programme please feel free to contact Ms. Alena Lawedrau-Moroca at the following email address: alena@sopac.org or by phone or fax as stated above.

Water Quotes

“When you see clouds gathering, prepare to catch rainwater,” a proverb of the Gola tribe of Africa.“A guest is like rain: when he lingers on, he becomes a nuisance,” a Yiddish proverb.International Rainwater Harvesting Alliance - newsletter no.14 - January 2006

River Tafwa, Vanuatu.

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Send To:

SOPACWater & Sanitation

Sender: SOPAC SecretariatPrivate Mail Bag, GPO, Suva

Opinions expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the SOPAC Secretariat, neither does the mention of any firm or licensed process imply endorsement.

Adapted from the Fiji Times: Voice of the People

Recent updatesWe have had to farewell our resident Water Engineer at SOPAC for the past two years, Ms Sarah Davies on Tuesday the 28th of March. She has been recruited by the International Red Cross to take up a Water and Sanitation role in one of the Red Cross’ outposts.

Sarah has been an outstanding colleague at the SOPAC’s Water Sector and has been active in a number of countries such as Niue, Tonga and the Cook Islands.

We will miss Sarah in our office and wish her all the best in her future career at the Red Cross.

Please send all contributions, comments & announcements to :Ms Alena Lawedrau-MorocaSOPAC SecretariatPrivate Mail Bag, Suva, FijiPh: (679) 3381377 Fax: (679) 3370040Email: alena@sopac.org

Baby Kaia Whitfield born to Marc Overmars and Sarah Whitfield.

Baby Alifereti Moroca born to Timoci and Alena Moroca.

New additions to Water

Baby Tomasi Sokota born to Josefa and Arieta Sokota.

Sarah Davies