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Eskinder Yousuf Omar was born and raised around Lake Haramaya. Remember the lake in its former glory. He used to take a boat to go for a walk and fish. “When the lake dried up, we felt like we had lost our mothers and fathers,” he says. As months of heavy rains brought the lake back to life, Eskinder began building a boat for fun playing in the water, as he used to do as a child.
As Ethiopia was having its wettest rainy season in years, Lake Haramaya has grown back in the agricultural valley of Hararge in the eastern Oromia region. The water level has risen by 61 percent, something significant for the body of water that completely dried up two decades ago. “This year’s abundant rains in the country have allowed many lakes, streams and rivers to grow slowly, including Lake Haramaya, said Teshome Seyoum, assistant professor of hydraulic engineering and water resources management at Haramaya University. However, this is not the first time the lake has retained water since it dried up twenty years ago, he said. It was briefly filled two years ago after the rainy period, Teshome recalled. The reason the lake dried up was that farmers in the area had pumped too much water from the lake, he says. “Much of that water was removed much faster than it could be replaced,” explains the associate professor.
The lake could be revived if proper water management is implemented. “There has been a big discrepancy between the water that entered the surface and the amount of water that was pumped out,” he says.
The lake is currently swollen from rain, but a long-term revival of the lake needs strict rules and regulations for sharing water resources, says the expert. If farmers in the area continue to divert water from the lake to their farmland and to unlimited irrigation, the sustainability of the lake would be called into question, the associate professor said. And there has to be a responsible body that can control that, he says.
Part of the solution is helping farmers adopt irrigation technology that saves water, according to Teshome. Community participation in demarcation of the lake’s limits is essential to maintain the body of water, he says.
On the other hand, to revive Lake Haramaya, experts say 15,000 hectares of land must be developed to control the amount of sediment entering the underground system and allow water to flow into the lake. Encouraging people to plant trees and a greater awareness of the importance of trees in protecting the environment is also crucial, says associate professor Teshome. (Translated from BBC Amharic.)
