The issue of hydropower and sustainable development could not be looked at in isolation and countries had to start managing hydropower, water and climate change at the same time, International Hydropower Association vice-president Dr Terry Moss said on Tuesday.

Moss told the Hydropower Africa conference in Johannesburg that Africa’s goals in terms of water, energy, climate change and development challenges were converging.

He emphasised the importance of proper water resource management for the continent, saying that there was a growing appreciation of the link between hydropower and water management.

Further, Moss stated that while hydropower remained largely untapped in Africa, there was increasingly more focus on such projects.

The world’s current hydropower production stood at about 2 889 TWh/y, while there was potential to boost this to 8 600 TWh/y.

Of this, Africa only produced about 7% of what it potentially could produce, compared with South America, which produced about 33% of its potential capacity, Europe with 75% and North America with 69%.

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