Metsi Consultants - DWA Home Page

Mitigation of Flow-Related Impacts
METSI CONSULTANTS: SUMMARY OF MAIN FINDINGS FOR PHASE 1 DEVELOPMENT
"Mitigation" refers to changes to project design, operations and/or project area management to reduce levels of
impact and/or resource losses. The most practical form of mitigation will be the release of additional water (over
and above Treaty-specified releases) to reduce levels of impact. The best achievable results will be those
described under the Design Limitation Scenario, which seeks maximum use of available outflow capacities in the
LHWP structures. Reductions in resource losses to wetbank vegetation (habitat for medicinal and wild food
plants), river sand (construction), fish (food and livelihood) and fuelwood could be achieved through releases of
flows totalling more than 100 million m 3 (MCM) per year, but significant residual losses would remain in all cases
except wetbank vegetation. Public health risks for gastrointestinal, skin and eye diseases would be reduced but
would remain severe in the lower Malibamats’o River and moderate in the lower Senqunyane River.
Human and animal health risks would be better mitigated through specific programmes of sanitation, water
supply, immunization, education and extension.
Compensation for Flow-Related Impacts
“Compensation” refers to cash, goods or services offered to replace resources that are unavoidably lost or
activities that are impeded as a result of project development and implementation. Under the Treaty Scenario
compensation will likely have to be provided to the households living along the lower Matsoku, Malibamats’o and
Senqunyane rivers (IFR reaches 1,2,3 and 7) where biophysical impacts are predicted to be severe to critically
severe. The need for compensation further down the system will have to be determined by monitoring of resource
availability and reduction (if any) over time.
Fuelwood and wild-harvested timber comprise the biggest resource loss to be compensated. Various forms of
community-based forestry programmes are applicable as a means to supply woody fuel and timber; similar
programmes have been applied elsewhere in Lesotho with only limited success. Supply of fossil fuels (paraffin)
as a replacement is an option. Compensation for lost fish resources is best approached as a food replacement
issue through horticultural and animal husbandry programmes since replacement of fish into flow-depleted and
obstructed rivers will be expensive and minimally effective. Replacement of biological resources taken from
riverine vegetation (food plants, medicinal herbs) will be technically and socially very difficult and expensive.
Monitoring Programmes
Two types of monitoring will be required – that related to IFRs (described further in the report body) and that
related to mitigation and compensation programmes (dealt with in separate reports).
IFR monitoring should be implemented to confirm actual amounts and seasonality of agreed flow releases, verify
if the objectives of flow releases are being achieved, and guide adjustments of IFRs and/or objectives (adaptive
management). Monitoring would best be undertaken at the already-established IFR sites, where baseline
hydrological and biophysical data exist.
Report No 678-F-001 viii