Preventing and resolving water use conflicts in the Mount Kenya highland-lowland system through Water User's Association

In recent decades, the Mount Kenya highland–lowland system, which includes the Ewaso Ngiro North Basin, has experienced complex ecological and socioeconomic dynamics. These are reflected in changing land use systems and practices as well as in a rapidly growing human population, especially in the footzones and adjacent lowlands. These changes have exerted unremitting pressure on water resources, especially because the demand for water by different user groups has continued to grow, against the backdrop of expensive alternative sources (rainwater and groundwater harvesting) and increasingly dwindling river water resources. As each of the user groups moves to make substantial claims to available river water, competition for the resource becomes even sharper, thus setting the stage for conflicts related to scarcity that intensify during the dry season, at times resulting in fatal physical conflicts among different user groups in the basin, especially between upstream and downstream users. Different approaches have been used to address these scarcity-related conflicts. The present article discusses Water Users' Associations as one of the most effective initiatives launched to address the problem of water use conflicts in the basin in the recent past.