The Government of Kenya (GoK) through the Ministry of Water and Irrigation is implementing Thwake Multi-purpose Water Development Program (TMWDP) comprising a multi-purpose dam for water supply, hydropower generation and irrigation development in Kitui and Makueni Counties. It will also provide regulation of flows on Athi River downstream of the dam for flood and drought mitigation. Works include the planning and construction of a 77m high multi-purpose dam, installation of 20 MW of hydropower capacity, development of water supply system for 150,000 m3/day and development of 40,000 hectares of irrigation systems. The works are carried out within the “Consulting Services For Complementary Studies For Thwake Multipurpose Water Development Program: Thwake Reservoir Modelling.”
Actual services provided by our staff within the assignment:
The immediate objective of the hydrological study is to carry out Thwake Reservoir Modelling with the purpose of arriving at estimates of safe yield for the reservoir as well as developing operational rules and a monitoring programme of measurements. A wider objective of the project is to contribute towards the construction of a hydrological and hydraulic model which is part of a decision support system (DSS) for Client and other end users. Detailed tasks include
- Estimation of the relationship between reservoir water elevation, hydropower discharge and hydropower generation
- Setting-up of a model to simulate the monthly reservoir balance of Thwake Reservoir and the future upstream reservoirs
- Simulation, using water balance model, to assess the level of demand satisfaction reliability, the safe yield of the reservoir and hydropower production under the base scenario and the upstream development scenario and for different operation rules
- Sensitivity Analysis of the different components of the Reservoir Water Balance to the available predictions of the effects of climate change in the catchment and qualitative conclusions on the level of adverse or beneficial impacts on reservoir yield
- Training of counterpart staff
Name of client: Ministry for Water and Irrigation / DMP
Start date (month/year): 03/2017
Completion date (month/year): 07/2017
