The Juba and Shabelle rivers of Somalia have fertile soils and abundant amount of water that allows irrigated agriculture to be carried out throughout the year, making the riverine areas of the two rivers traditionally the bread basket of Somalia. However, the two rivers are prone to flooding mainly because the bulk of their flow originate from the Ethiopian highlands, which receives very high rainfall during the rainy seasons.

Drought conditions continued to worsen since November affecting more than 50% of the population. Pasture and water came to a complete depletion in most areas leaving about 440,000 in displacement as in 31 March 2017

After previous attempts thwarted by lack of access, SWALIM has finally managed to carry out a water sources survey in Galmudug State in Central Somalia through a local NGO. The survey covered the strategic water sources in nine districts within Galgadud and Mudug Regions

The SWALIM Flood Risk and Response Management Information System (FRRMIS), originally developed and launched in 2013, has been revamped to give users a better experience and more timely information. The FRRMIS is a web-based information dissemination and sharing platform that brings together essential information related to floods in Somalia into a single user interface. The new system uses a SWALIM custom web mapping technology and contains a variety of flood information presented in multiple formats.

The Juba and Shabelle rivers are the only perennial rivers in the country, but 90% of their flow originates from a neighbouring country - Ethiopia. The two rivers sustain agricultural production not only by providing much needed irrigation, but also through the very fertile flood plains where a variety of crops are grown for domestic and foreign markets.