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                                   The Zambezi River Basin

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                                   The Zambezi River Basin

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Conflicts on the Water's Edge

A presentation by Kelly Maere-Diener

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                           What is a Transboundry Watershed?

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                           What is a Transboundry Watershed?

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A watershed is defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as

"a dividing ridge between two drainage areas"

as well as

"a region or area bounded by a divide and draining ultimately to a particular watercourse or body of water"

- A watershed that is "transboundry" is a drainage point that shares it's
borders with two or more countries and is relied upon by vast numbers of
people.

We will be going over the stakeholders, conflicts and environmental status of the Zambezi River Basin in South Africa.

By doing so we will better understand the factors currently preventing cohesion, cooperation, and sustainability along the water's edge as well as steps being taken to create unity within the countries dependent on the watershed.

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                                    The Zambezi River Basin

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                                    The Zambezi River Basin

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The Zambezi River is a body of water located in South Africa that is shared by eight separate countries:
- Angola
- Botswana
- Malawi
- Mozambique
- Namibia
- Tanzania
- Zambia
and
- Zimbabwe.

- There has been constant strife over ownership and access to the river's
waters

- While all eight countries share a very similar regional space their
geographical needs vary by location.

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                                "Zambezi - The Source of Life" 

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                                "Zambezi - The Source of Life" 

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A brief look into the Zambezi River Basin

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                                          Physical Parameters

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                                          Physical Parameters

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Length - 1,599 miles or 3,000 km
Drainage Area of the Basin - 1,390,000 square km

Yearly Precipitation:
- Precipitation ranges from 500 mm in the deep south to 1400 mm in
upper regions.
- A yearly rainy season graces the area but is significantly longer and
heavier in the North. The South receives a general 700 mm, or less,
in rain a year.

Flooding and droughts are both significant problems along the basin.

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                                          Major Land Uses

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                                          Major Land Uses

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The river provides and supports:
- Mining
- Fisheries
- Drinking Water
- Food Irrigation
- Fundamental income through tourism
- Hydroelectric Power

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                                            Energy Access

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                                            Energy Access

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- Hydroelectric Power is processed through multiple power plants across
the region.

- Some of these power plants can create up to 2,000 megawatts at a time.

- There are 18 plants currently existing or currently in construction around
the Zambezi.

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                                       Social Parameters

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                                       Social Parameters

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- Roughly 40 million people are reliant on the system.

- Threats to water security include droughts, flooding and pollution and the
inability for the individual nations to work together.

- The inability to compromise between countries leads to more insecurity.

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                                 Water Availability and Access 

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                                 Water Availability and Access 

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Each countries’ needs depend on their location along the basin, particularly because rainfall varies harshly region to region:

- Zambia and Zimbabwe hold most of the watershed’s terrain:
- These countries serve as the river’s leading management roles.
- They share high-traffic tourist locations such as the Kariba
Dam and Victoria Falls.

- Angola, Mozambique, and Zambia are much more water-rich and rely less
on surface water for irrigation.

- Basin-bordering countries such as Namibia and Botswana receive very
little rainfall and are reliant on groundwater resources for daily life.

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                                  Climate Change Challenges

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                                  Climate Change Challenges

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- Southern countries bordering the Zambezi as air temperatures increase,
rainfall decreases, increasing the conditions that bring massive droughts.

- Massive droughts limit food irrigation.

- Northern countries bordering the Zambezi find themselves with larger
quantities of rain, leading to disastrous flooding.

- People in areas effected by drought or flooding migrate into other
countries in search of freshwater and food.

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                                         "Zambezi Floods"

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                                         "Zambezi Floods"

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Short footage of Zambezi floodwaters

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                          "Victoria Falls Shrinks to a Trickle..."

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                          "Victoria Falls Shrinks to a Trickle..."

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A short video published to YouTube December 2019

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Victoria Falls shrinks to a trickle after worst drought in a century

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                                          Ecosystem Change

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                                          Ecosystem Change

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- Loss of habitat is expected through these massive droughts and flooding
instances.

- High-Impact climate events often wipe out entire ecosystems and have the
potential to put many species at risk.

- Previous flood planes in South Africa have turned into dried, cracked
wastelands.

- Many animals, such as African Elephants, lose their access to water and die
of thirst.

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                                 Agriculture and Food Security

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                                 Agriculture and Food Security

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High-impact climate change events have huge impacts on food irrigation:
- Drought creates a lack of water for irrigation.
- Floods wipe out any farmland currently being irrigated.

- The population bordering the river basin is inspected to increase, bringing
with it an increased demand for water for drinking and irrigation.

- Without water security there is no food security.

- Access to clean water and keeping the population healthy and alive is an
issue that commonly competes over time and money with structural
matters like dam-building.

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                            Current Management of the System

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                            Current Management of the System

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Current system management is hindered by:
- Inadequate structures in the basin
- Poor data collection
- Poor communication between countries
- Inadequate training
and
- Constraints on Human, Institutional, Legal, and Economic factors

- Dam building helps manage flooding and control the flow of water into
drought effected areas.

- Leaving sections of the water undamed can lead to disaster for areas that
are dependent on groundwater.

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                                           Human Migration

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                                           Human Migration

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- Areas facing climate disasters have worsening situations in areas that
struggle with poverty.

Countries that find themselves struggling with resources long before high-impact disasters, the impacts will not be limited to those areas:
- Fleeing populations have to flee somewhere
- Not every country that becomes a haven for refugees has the
resources to take care of them.

“Whether or not they are well equipped to cope with a massive influx of refugees, and most of them are not particularly able to do so, that is what they have got.” (Betts 2017, page 33)

- Environmental changes are a major cause of the refugee crisis, forcing
people into new areas in search of necessities.

- Changing environmental factors like temperature, ocean level, erosion, and
so on cause the chances for high-impact events such as floods or droughts
to drastically increase.

- These high-impact events drastically alter the landscape and forces
communities into new areas, worsening the problem.

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                                           Political Conflict

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                                           Political Conflict

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- Difficulties accessing clean drinking water or the inability to form reliable
sources of food create inter-continent skirmishes.

“We argue that in certain circumstances these direct and indirect impacts of climate change on human security may in turn increase the risk of violent conflict” (Barnett, 2007)

Colonization over these basin-bordering countries widened the divide
culturally, impacting the ability to come together over common needs
today:
- Before the regions bordering the basin were “carved up” in
accordance with colonizers best interests, it appears that water
needs within the region were broadly met.

- Political boundary-lines is a major roadblock on the way to managing
water resources.

“Even if there are many transboundary identities and ethnicities in the Zambezi river basin, the interests of ruling colonial and national elites have constituted the main organizing principle for the governance and the management of the Zambezi basin” (Söderbaum, 2015)

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                    Human Migration and Moral Responsibility 

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                    Human Migration and Moral Responsibility 

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- Leaders of governments receiving large groups of refugees have to ask
themselves what their moral responsibility is towards helping these
people, as well as their own.

- With a new influx of people increasing the population, distribution of
resources and budget designations have to be reassessed in high-refugee
areas.

- An ethical position would be to provide whatever assistance can be
provided.

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                                      An Attempted Solution

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                                      An Attempted Solution

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-  One attempt at constructing a more environmentally-friendly plan for
the river basin was the Zambezi River Action Plan (ZACPLAN) in 1987.

- The fundamental concept of the ZACPLAN was to have all eight basin
bordering countries agree upon a plan set by the National Environmental
Program (UNEP) following the the Integrated Water Resource Management
(IWRM) paradigm.

- One major achievement was contributing to the 1995 Protocol on Shared
Water Courses, a framework for water resource management built over
nearly three decades.

- This protocol led to the formation of the Zambezi Watercourse Commission
(ZAMCOM).

ZACPLAN ultimately failed due to
- Struggles over leadership between interacting countries
- Lack of commitment from donors
and
- An inability to cooperate among the eight countries

“Since no behavioral change can be observed, the ZACPLAN can be qualified as ineffective” (Söderbaum, 2015)

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                                    Another Attempted Solution 

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                                    Another Attempted Solution 

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- Government organizations bordering the basin have made attempts to
produce water-management plans that will provide all eight counties with
the resources they need.

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) is a multi
country-organization created in hopes to:
- Integrate basin needs
and
- Create a sustainable plan for region development.

- Working alongside the IWRM, SADC developed methods to help manage
competing demands of the 15 shared rivers in the lower half of the
continent.

- Competing demands over power structures, financial and human
resources, and water have made it incredibly difficult to form a system
that adequately provides for all involved.

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                             The "Triple Bottom Line" Concept

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                             The "Triple Bottom Line" Concept

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The Triple Bottom Line is based on three fundamental  "P's":
- People
- Planet
- Profit

- It is a business concept that focuses not only on making money but the
preservation of nature and what is beneficial to the people.

- It's a way of ensuring environmental sustainability while living in a capitalist
society.

- One can theorize that a solution that fits the Triple Bottom Line would
vastly improve the Zambezi situation.

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                                  The "Triple Bottom Line"

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                                  The "Triple Bottom Line"

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The Triple Bottom Line in more detail:

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                                   Feasible Future Solutions

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                                   Feasible Future Solutions

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Striking the cause of disaster is a much more permanent solution to putting a bandage on the symptoms.

Addressing the environmental problems directly would better address
the issue of the refugee crisis as a whole.

This could be accomplished by:

- Implementing more environmentally friendly practices, in all countries
around the globe, preventing climate change from worsening and
thus preventing many major-impact events that would cause the
emergency evacuation of communities. This is particularity necessary in
highly industrial and first-world countries.

- Countries with the ability to lend a helping hand to countries growing
industrially could help implement these environmentally friendly
practices by providing the resources and knowledge available.

Conflicts within the Zambezi River Basin could be managed through:
- Community Assistance: Countries with well developed water
management systems sharing resources and knowledge
- Improved infrastructure
- Having neutral parties mediate negotiations for equitable river
access
- Scientific Studies on Climate Change: Currently five students from
the Delft University of Technology are mapping the Zambezi River.

" The overall goal of this mapping is to be able to enhance the water, food and energy security in the Lower Zambezi river through a better understanding of the rainfall-runoff behavior in the river catchment."
(NL Netherlands, 2019)

Finding solutions that not only aide current refugees misplaced do to environmental disaster but actively combating climate change at it's root, despite what it may cost financially, would fulfill the requirements of the Triple Bottom Line and prevent the situation from worsening.

Without the burden of further high-impact events caused by climate change, issues towards infrastructure and reconstruction in areas previously evacuated by refugees can begin.

This concept of the Triple Bottom Line could easily be achieved if enough countries came together to create a Green New Deal in order to stop climate change at it's source.

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                                            In Conclusion

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                                            In Conclusion

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- 40 million people residing in the countries bordering the Zambezi River do
not have water or food security.

- Climate Change has rampaged through the countries along the Zambezi
causing disastrous flooding and catastrophic droughts across different parts
of the region.

- High-impact climate disasters have created refugees fleeing their home
countries in search of basic necessities, putting economic strain on nearby
nations that are also facing climate disaster thus worsening the problem.

- Without coordination and cooperation between borders, the basic needs of
most of the countries reliant on the Zambezi will not be met.

- There has been no modern water access settlement between the countries
bordering the Zambezi due to political strife.

- Attempts are still being made to find a solution that will benefit all of the
countries involved.

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                                               References 

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                                               References 

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