Ecological Changes in the Zambezi River Basin

This research article was published in Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa, 2021.Africa faces a plethora of challenges and chief among these is a change in the climate (Zakaria and Maharjan 2014) which is one of the key factors affecting the ecology and hydrology of its river basins (Kusangaya et al. 2014). Beilfuss (2012) proposed that Africa’s arid regions are highly vulnerable to climate change with the Zambezi River Basin (ZRB) being particularly at risk (Kling et al. 2014). After the Nile and Niger rivers, the ZRB is the next most trans-boundary river basin in Africa as it serves eight African countries. Consequently, water resource development planning is crucial, since any changes in climate will impact the hydrological cycle and the amount of water retained in hydrological systems (Beilfuss 2012) of which only up to 3 per cent is readily available as usable and shared freshwater. Like some Sub-Saharan countries, which have experienced up to 0.5 C increases in temperature (Hendrix and Glaser 2007), the Zambezi River Basin is also facing changes in climate (Ndhlovu 2013). A recent study by Kling et al.(2014) reported rises in temperature and more variable precipitation in the basin since the 1980s. Such historical climatic changes, and those projected towards the mid-century (2050), are of concern with serious social and economic implications to local communities (Mubaya et al. 2012). The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projected a global decadal temperature rise of 0.2 C (IPCC 2007). However, regional climat

City to city learning and knowledge exchange for climate resilience in southern Africa

This paper argues that learning is essential for cities to become resilient to challenges. The Future Resilience for African CiTies And Lands (FRACTAL) project is profiled. Following FRACTAL’s city-to-city learning approach of sharing good practices, knowledge and experiences framed around transdisciplinary research, the study cities of Harare, Lusaka, Windhoek and Durban conducted city learning exchange visits between 2017 and 2018. FRACTAL contributes towards climate resilient development by providing relevant climate information for decision-making at the city regional scale in southern Africa. Transferable lessons and practices included effective water conservation and waste management and the use of public-private partnerships.UK’s Department for International Development (DFID)Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) (2015-2019)START International’s Global Environmental Change (GEC) grants (2016-2017

The role of institutions in managing local level climate change adaptation in semi-arid Zimbabwe

Significant efforts have been made to understand impacts and how communities adapt to climate change impacts, yet there is an urgent need to interrogate the capacity of institutions and institutional arrangements in local level adaptation processes. Literature highlights that the success of these adaptation efforts generally hinges upon the nature of existing formal and informal rural institutions. This paper uses largely a qualitative approach to understand institutional structural issues and the role of institutions and institutional arrangements in facilitating local level adaptation. From our research we note three salient findings and their implications for incorporating institutions in local level adaptation. First, the public and private institutions in the study areas play a key role in facilitating adaptation, which appears to be in contrast to previous research in which societal configurations indicate greater state retreat over the past two to three decades. Second, while there appears to be a straightforward distinction between public, private and civic institutions in terms of their functions, we suggest caution given the fuzziness and fluidity of institutional categorization on the ground. Third, it appears that institutions and institutional arrangements of an informal nature foster collective action, that they have remained important over the past decades and remain a critical entry point into dealing with exclusionary tendencies against the vulnerable in communities. Within a broader discussion of the role of institutional frameworks in facilitating adaptation our case contributes to the broader issues of the inevitability of ultimately dealing with development challenges in the process of fostering local level adaptation

Avenues for improving farming sustainability assessment with upgraded tools, sustainability framing and indicators. A review

The sustainability of agriculture is questioned due to major negative environmental and socioeconomic impacts. To improve the state of agriculture, various management changes have been proposed. Different tools, with varying characteristics, sustainability framing and indicators, have been used to evaluate the impact of these changes on sustainability. Here, we review 119 tools for farm sustainability assessment and compare their use, sustainability dimensions, themes and types of indicators used for biodiversity conservation, farm viability and gender equity. Our main findings are that (1) tools could be classified into five groups that differ in stakeholder participation and model used for calculating sustainability, (2) seven different sustainability framings are used and (3) only two out of 29 indicators screened address impacts of farming system while the others address drivers, pressures or states of the system. The tools were grouped in "Long-term monitoring of farm activities" (11%), "Ex-ante assessment of sustainability with bioeconomic models" (9%), "Survey- and indicator-based assessment of tools" (41%), "Consultation-based assessment" (25%) and "Active engagement of stakeholder-based assessment" (14%). The "classical view of sustainability", with the economic, social and environmental pillars, was used in 61% of the papers. Based on these findings, we suggest (1) development of temporal dynamic assessment of farm sustainability with active involvement of stakeholders in the framing of sustainability and design of indicators to achieve reliable and relevant assessment outcomes. We recommend (2) adoption of more complex sustainability framings dealing with emerging system properties, namely resilience, viability and stability. In these, (3) governance/institutional dimensions should be emphasised, and social themes targeting farmers' characteristics should be included. Finally, (4) use of impact indicators in farm sustainability assessments is critical, and they should be designed to contribute to scientifically rigorous and relevant assessments of farming system sustainability

Description of tools for the sustainability assessment of farms and farming systems

The “summary” table shows the papers and names of the tools and the link to the main publication as well as the use of the paper in each part of the analysis. We presented the variables for all the methods in a table called “method” with the result of the classification. In the table “dimension”, we presented the extraction of the dimension of sustainability and classification of methods. We did the same for the “themes” with a colour that we used for providing the descriptive statistics on the number of themes per dimension. We used three tables for each indicator that present the name of the indicator as extracted in the publication

Perceived impacts of climate related parameters on smallholder farmers in Zambia and Zimbabwe

Cereal production especially maize, is central to food security in Southern Africa. However, it is highly sensitive to drought and climatic variation, and the relationship between production volatility and climate events has been established. This paper focuses on perceived impacts of climate variability on smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe and Zambia where there appears to be an increasing trend towards a late rainy season, prolonged mid-season droughts, and shorter growing seasons. 720 households in 4 districts were surveyed. 80% of farmers in both countries indicate they have noticed significant weather changes over the years

Earth System Governance in Africa: knowledge and capacity needs

Traditional approaches for understanding environmental governance - such as environmental policy analysis or natural resources management - do not adequately address the gamut of human-natural system interactions within the context of the complex biogeophysical cycles and processes of the planet. This is perhaps more so in the African regional context where the complex relationships between modern and traditional governance systems and global change dynamics are arguably more pronounced. The Earth System Governance (ESG) Analytical Framework encompasses diverse systems and actors involved in the regulation of societal activities and behaviors vis-a-vis earth system dynamics. The concept encompasses a myriad of public and private actors and actor networks at all levels of policy and decision-making. The existence of, and interaction among, these diverse actors and systems, however, is under-researched in the African context. Various research approaches taken to address crucial global environmental change (GEC) challenges in Africa have proven to be inadequate because they tend to overlook the complex interactions among the various local actors, players, and indigenous conditions and practices vis-a-vis GEC system drivers and teleconnections. Similarly, the regional peculiarities in terms of governance typologies and sociocultural diversity highlight the need for nuanced understanding of the complex interactions and nexuses among multiple actors and interests and Earth system processes. However, this diversity and complexity has often been lost in generalized enquiries. We argue that examination of the governance-GEC nexus through the aid of the ESG Framework would provide a much broader and more helpful insight