The Omo Turkana Basin

"This book provides a comprehensive examination of water resource management in the Omo-Turkana Basin, linking together biophysical, socioeconomic, policy, institutions and governance issues in a solutions-oriented manner. The Omo-Turkana Basin is one of the most important lake basins in Africa, and despite the likely transboundary impacts associated with the management of dams, it is the largest lake basin in Africa without a cooperative water agreement. This volume provides a foundation for integrated decision-making in the management of development in the Lake Turkana Basin. Chapters cover water-related conditions, hydropower, agriculture, ecosystems, resilience and transboundary governance. The final chapter proposes ways forward in light of the potential benefits that can be achieved through cooperation, and practical realities that cooperation is slow and may take time to achieve. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of water and natural resource management, environmental policy, sustainable development and African studies. It will also be relevant to water management professionals"--

This sumptuously illustrated book brings together a remarkable collection of the world’s leading archaeologists, ecologists, historians and ethnographers who specialise in the Omo-Turkana area (spanning spans parts of Ethiopia, South Sudan and Kenya), and recognising it as a crucial, and currently vulnerable, resource of global heritage.

This book is open access under a CC BY-NC 2.5 license. This book offers a devastating look at deeply flawed development processes driven by international finance, African governments and the global consulting industry. It examines major river basin development underway in the semi-arid borderlands of Ethiopia, Kenya and South Sudan and its disastrous human rights consequences for a half-million indigenous people. The volume traces the historical origins of Gibe III megadam construction along the Omo River in Ethiopia—in turn, enabling irrigation for commercial-scale agricultural development and causing radical reduction of downstream Omo and (Kenya's) Lake Turkana waters. Presenting case studies of indigenous Dasanech and northernmost Turkana livelihood systems and Gibe III linked impacts on them, the author predicts agropastoral and fishing economic collapse, region-wide hunger with exposure to disease epidemics, irreversible natural resource destruction and cross-border interethnic armed conflict spilling into South Sudan. The book identifies fundamental failings of government and development bank impact assessments, including their distortion or omission of mandated transboundary assessment, cumulative effects of the Gibe III dam and its linked Ethiopia-Kenya energy transmission 'highway' project, key hydrologic and human ecological characteristics, major earthquake threat in the dam region and widespread expropriation and political repression. Violations of internationally recognized human rights, especially by the Ethiopian government but also the Kenyan government, are extensive and on the increase—with collaboration by the development banks, in breach of their own internal operational procedures. A policy crossroads has now emerged. The author presents the alternative to the present looming catastrophe—consideration of development suspension in order to undertake genuinely independent transboundary assessment and a plan for continued development action within a human rights framework—forging a sustainable future for the indigenous peoples now directly threatened and for their respective eastern Africa states. Claudia Carr’s book is a treasure of detailed information gathered over many years concerning river basin development of the Omo River in Ethiopia and its impact on the peoples of the lower Omo Basin and the Lake Turkana region in Kenya. It contains numerous maps, charts, and photographs not previously available to the public. The book is highly critical of the environmental and human rights implications of the Omo River hydropower projects on both the local ethnic communities in Ethiopia and on the downstream Turkana in Kenya. David Shinn Former Ambassador to Ethiopia and to Burkina Faso Adjust Professor of International Affairs, The George Washington University, Washington D.C.

Discusses how prehistoric humans responded to the environmental and climatic changes within the Nile Basin during the past million years.

This book provides a comprehensive examination of water resource management in the Omo-Turkana Basin, linking together biophysical, socioeconomic, policy, institutional and governance issues in a solutions-oriented manner. The Omo-Turkana Basin is one of the most important lake basins in Africa, and despite the likely transboundary impacts associated with the management of dams, it is the largest lake basin in Africa without a cooperative water agreement. This volume provides a foundation for integrated decision-making in the management of development in the Lake Turkana Basin. Chapters cover water-related conditions, hydropower, agriculture, ecosystems, resilience and transboundary governance. The final chapter proposes ways forward in light of the potential benefits that can be achieved through cooperation, and practical realities that cooperation is slow and may take time to achieve. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of water and natural resource management, environmental policy, sustainable development and African studies. It will also be relevant to water management professionals.

Rangeland, forests and riverine landscapes of pastoral communities in Eastern Africa are increasingly under threat. Abetted by states who think that outsiders can better use the lands than the people who have lived there for centuries, outside commercial interests have displaced indigenous dwellers from pastoral territories. This volume presents case studies from Eastern Africa, based on long-term field research, that vividly illustrate the struggles and strategies of those who face dispossession and also discredit ideological false modernist tropes like ‘backwardness’ and ‘primitiveness’.

Examines the new challenges facing Africa's pastoral drylands from large-scale investments and how this might affect the economic and political landscape for the regions affected and their peoples.

What have we learnt about the Nile since the mid-1970s, the moment when Julian Rzóska decided that the time had come to publish a comprehensive volume about the biology, and the geological and cultural history of that great river? And what changes have meanwhile occurred in the basin? The human popu- tion has more than doubled, especially in Egypt, but also in East Africa. Locally, industrial development has taken place, and the Aswan High Dam was clearly not the last major infrastructure work that was carried out. More dams have been built, and some water diversions, like the Toshka lakes, have created new expanses of water in the middle of the Sahara desert. What are the effects of all this on the ec- ogy and economy of the Basin? That is what the present book sets out to explore, 33 years after the publi- tion of “The Nile: Biology of an Ancient River”. Thirty-seven authors have taken up the challenge, and have written the “new” book. They come from 13 different countries, and 15 among them represent the largest Nilotic states (Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Kenya). Julian Rzóska died in 1984, and most of the - authors of his book have now either disappeared or retired from research. Only Jack Talling and Samir Ghabbour were still available to participate again.