Check dams

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Headman Shamabobo is over sixty, old enough to remember a different river. When he was young, the Lukanga river ran all year steady and green along its banks. It was a reliable source of water, and no one had to think twice about where the water would come from. Then the Ithezi Tezi dam was built, a four-hour drive upstream. The Lukanga river became seasonal. The trees came down to make way for farmland. The rains, with nothing to slow them, ran straight off the bare soil and were gone. "The water leaves before it can seep into the ground," headman Shamabobo says. With less water in the ground, it is hard to grow food.

What once the trees did, now the check dams provide

The trees slowed down the rain with its canopy, hold the water with their roots and let it filter gradually into the earth. This is exactly what the new check dam are trying to do. In late 2024 five new dams were built along local waterways. These are special, semi-permeable barriers of stone that let water through slowly, in the same way a healthy forest floor once did, recharging the groundwater below rather than letting it rush away.

By the start of the 2025 dry season, the dams passed their first real test. The communal gardens nearby held their water through months that would previously have left the soil cracked and bare. In the locations with check dams, water was present almost the entire year, something that hadn't happened in a generation.

Putting the dams through another test: flash floods

Then, the 2025 rainy season started and brought flash floods. These rapid floods found the weak points quickly. A significant cut in GIZ funding had left several dams unfinished, leaving them without incomplete armoring or without extended wing walls. The floods undercut the unfinished sections, leaving them with structural damage. The work that would have protected them is the work that ran out of budget.

A flowing Lukanga river is still in reach

Shamabobo's hope to see his beloved Lukanga river flowing, and the surroundings lush and green is still within reach. Therefore, together with the whole community, we work hard to repair the dams and built many more!