CIAT 19 March, 2015 by Stephanie Malyon (comments)

Every rainy season Jane Kabugi’s home comes under attack. The torrential rain so desperately needed downstream to fuel Kenya’s rising electricity demands – and Nairobi’s water requirements – has literally been tearing her home and farm apart.

“There was a time when this house of mine was almost gone; it was starting to crack. An engineer came and said ‘if you want to save your house you need to make a strong hold so that the soil can be held’,” she said.

Like 90 per cent of the one million farmers in Kenya’s Tana region, northwest of Nairobi, Jane’s land sits on a steep hillside with a 75 percent incline. She explains: “Our soil is very soft. So when it rains, the rain tends to take the soil away. If I put manure it takes it, if I put fertiliser it takes it.”

Jane Kabugi explains how heavy rain was destroying her home and farm. Credit: SMalyon/CIAT

Far from just affecting farmer homes and livelihoods in one of Kenya’s most agriculturally productive areas, the knock-on effect downstream is threatening water and energy supplies. As torrents carry precious top soil away from farms into the watershed, the Tana River, which drives half of Kenya’s hydropower-generated electricity and provides 95 per cent of Nairobi’s water, becomes choked with sediment.

The Tana River becomes choked with sedimentation after the rain. Credit: FKizito/CIAT

The soil-heavy river feeds into the Nairobi Water Company treatment plant where it is cleaned. Credit: GSmith/CIAT

- See more at: http://www.ciatnews.cgiar.org/2015/03/19/africas-first-water-fund-to-tackle-rising-threats-to-food-security-water-and-energy-supplies/#sthash.GuUZ7NzL.dpuf