Green Roads for Water Scoping Study in Somaliland

Some of the problems observed during this study include very little water availability for agriculture and livestock, aridity and low biomass production, poor soils, accelerated gully erosion and degradation of existing vegetation cover. It was also observed that road development in Somaliland is at its early stage but now it is becoming a priority with 11 current road projects which 5 are under construction. One of the very interesting findings was the significant potential to harvest beneficial water along roads (300 m3 of water can be harvested per kilometre of road per year). Based on the findings above and the discussions with local stakeholders was concluded that there is a huge potential for GR4W in Somaliland. Various simple and affordable GR4W measures can be applied to harvest water from roads for irrigation, livestock drinking water and groundwater recharge, while at the same time protecting the road infrastructure and the environment around roads. Apart from the technical aspects, since GR4W is a multi-sectoral task that must take place at the landscape/watershed level, coordination and collaboration among major stakeholder is highly required.