Scoping ESIA's Water4Nampula project misses essential information - Mozambique

27 December 2021

The Water4Nampula project involves the rehabilitation and expansion of water supply to 4 towns in Nampula province. For each of these towns an ESIA will be carried out. Invest International, a Dutch government facility financing the feasibility and environmental studies, asked the NCEA to review the scoping reports for the ESIA's.

The NCEA concluded that 3 scoping reports do not or at least insufficiently address the risk that the current river flow and storage volume cannot meet the projected water demand during certain parts of the year. When that happens, the effects on the water users in Nametil, Namialo and Malema, as well as on the downstream water users are expected to be serious. Effects can also impact biodiversity, ecosystems and living natural resources and in turn, livelihoods that depend on these resources. In the NCEA's advice, these and other shortcomings and recommendations are described in more detail.