In this blog post i will focus solely on the river basin of the Zambezi which supports over 40 million people in many different forms including for tourism, industry, for energy and for drinking water along with many more. The management and protection of this precious source of life is of the upmost importance, It is bought into difficulties however as the river basin is shared between eight countries including Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique. these countries do not always share the same views on the best allocation and use of the water source and often find that they have competing interests.
From Table 1 shown highlighted in red on the table, the countries Malawi and Zimbabwe suffer from increased water stress, defined as per capita water resources being below 1,700m3 per capita. (Falkenmark, 1989) Water stress in Southern Africa is likely to be made worse by climate change in the coming years, as droughts and severe weather makes available water resources ever more unpredictable. These countries have to be increasingly careful with how they manage their supplies and the lack of institutional structures in place for the basin as a whole has hampered these efforts.
[Table 1. Water resources in the Zambezi Basin. SCHOLES AND BIGGS 2004]
In 2011 the Zambezi finally gained a governing body called the Zambezi Watercourse Commission (ZamCom). The hope that this would make the management of the river easier has been hampered by the fact that Zambia, which experiences around half of the rivers flow, has yet to join. There has been growing unease about this as if Zambia start allocating or withdrawing water in greater volumes, there could be severe consequence for those downstream who rely on the Zambezi for their livelihoods.
The main worry for the downstream countries is that Zambia will start to make large water transfers, as demand for water rises due to increased water stress in Southern Africa, reducing the flow of the Zambezi downstream. There is an increasing likelihood that Zimbabwe and Mozambique could challenge the “hydrological hegemony” of Zambia that it exerts using its position of an upstream nation to “expand its consumptive water use” often to the detriment of the downstream nations. (CGIAR, 2015)
This post repeats some curious arguments that the course, GEOG3038, has encouraged you to challenge. Your post refers increased freshwater withdrawals threatening the flow of the Zambesi. Consider the fourth column in Table 1 - fraction of freshwater withdrawals to renewable freshwater resources (river discharge) and natural variability in river discharge in southern Africa discussed in the first two lecture/serminars. Also consider the appropriateness of the Falkenmark Water Stress Index (you apply the 'water stress' threshold to claim problems with two countries in red) as a valid or reasonable measure of freshwater requirements in Sub-Saharan Africa.
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