The City of Kigali has said that it is conducting studies on six high critical flooding spots and a storm water management master plan mitigate floods in the long-term. The revelation was made following the weather forecast from March to May this year which was disseminated on Friday February 18 showing that some parts of the country are likely to face floods including Kigali city. Merard Mpabwanamaguru, the Vice-Mayor in charge of Urbanisation and Infrastructure in City of Kigali told The New Times that the six flooding spots in Kigali include Rugunga, Gisozi-Umukindo, Rwandex, Kinyinya and Nyabisindu among others. The storm water management plan is packed within $175 million (approx. Rwf173bn) project “RUD II project” to ‘green’ the City of Kigali and the six secondary cities. Meanwhile he said that during the forthcoming heavy rainy season, the city is implementing and mobilizing all citizens to the short-term solutions of storm water management to reduce flooding and disasters caused by heavy rains. The interventions, he said, include regular cleaning of roadside drainage and storm water channels, desilting at critical flooded spots namely Rwampara, Rugunga, Kinamba, Kanogo, Former cadilac, Kiruhura and Prince House as well as excavation of retention ponds to hold extra water and silts during times of flooding. “This was done at Kinamba, Rugunga and Rwampara flooding spots,” he said. Other interventions include maintenance of ravines, planting trees and vegetations to retain soil to prevent landslide, greening alongside of roads and unprotected areas, expansion of the existing stormwater drainage structures to increase their conveyance capacity of the rainwater runoff, retaining walls, gabions walls, stone pitching to prevent land sliding among others. Drainage rehabilitation is among the most needed interventions to curb floods in the city. The city needs over Rwf30 billion funding for rehabilitating and expanding several drainages that usually cause flooding in the country’s capital. Within the last three years, only eight new standalone ravines have been constructed, Officials said. Mpabwanamaguru added that upgrading informal settlement could also help cope with landslides effects. “Poor waste management continues to negatively impact the urban storm water management and routinely cause urban flooding by blocking drainage and increasing debris. To overcome the issues, the City of Kigali has established a solid waste management system, whereby solid waste is collected door to door by an assigned company to collect solid waste within the entire sector,” he said, adding that households are encouraged to harvest rain water. Provision of storm water retention infrastructures such as ponds, dams, bioretention basins, swales, porous pavers have also been catered in the City master plan, he noted. He added that the city building permitting department has set the use of water tanks from households as a mandatory requirement to get a construction and occupation permit as part of mitigating floods, he added.
