Sustainable Hydropower and Multipurpose Storage to meet the Water, Food and Energy SDGs  (2018-2020)

Funding

IHE Delft, Netherlands, 32,000 euros, (Contract extension 2020) IHE Delft 35,000 Euros. Total value 67,500 Euros

Investigators/researchers

Dr John Conallin

Research Theme

Sustainable Development (International)

Description

S-MultiStor is a 3-year initiative to investigate and demonstrate improved approaches to sustainable multi-purpose storage, aiming to make a measurable impact on sustainable development. The initiative is global in scope but includes concentrated activates in the Zambezi Basin of southern Africa, the Magdalena Basin of Colombia, and the Ayeyarwady (Irrawaddy) Basin of Myanmar. It creates a common research and innovation platform where researchers, planners, resource managers, and other decision-makers collaborate in the co-design and co-development of research and innovation activities.

Dr John Conallin is leading the Myanmar component of the initiative which is working with local and international partners to develop a national framework for environmental flows for Myanmar. Environmental flows (eflows) describe the quantity and quality of water and sediment flows allocated to sustain freshwater and estuarine ecosystems and the human livelihoods and well-being that depend on these ecosystems. Environmental flows are a central tenet of integrated water resources management (IWRM) that water-resource developments should balance exploitation of the river with protection of its natural resources and the ecosystem services as well as livelihoods. Myanmar currently has no formal policy or legislation to ensure that environmental flows are part of water management in Myanmar rivers, wetlands and estuaries for the sustainability of the people, economy or environment. This project intends to help provide such a framework for going forward. The major partners within Myanmar for the initiative are Yangon Technological University, WWF Myanmar, International Finance Corporation and various government agencies.

In 2020 the project has been extended for another year to do:

• Field research on water quality (temperature) in the Myitgne River
• An Environmental Flows Workshop in collaboration with Yanga Technological University
• A paper on capacity building through research approaches

For the S-Multistor prospectus  pdf

Outcomes

- Myanmar specific environmental flows alpha version framework

- Two Myanmar PhDs specifically on Environmental Flows

Contact

Dr John Conallin Email

January 2020