Management of River Basins and Dams

The Zambezi River Basin

M.J. Tumbare

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9781000446524
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Subtopic: Geography
• Index: Geography

The Zambezi river basin is the fourth largest river basin in Africa and drains a total of some 1350.000 squarekm. The basin drains eight countries: Angola, Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The river flows over the famous Victoria Falls into the third largest artificial lake in the world: Lake Kariba. The Zambezi Basin is rich in natural resources and has a large hydro-power potential. This volume contains 37 papers which have been published in international journals, or presented at international conferences by the Zambezi River Authority staff. The topics covered include: Dam Safety, Rehabilitation and Maintenance, Environment and Health, Hydrology, Limnology, Information Systems, Water Resource Management, Hydropower Development and Socio-Economic Issues.

Kariba Dam’s operation Noah re-launched

M.J. TUMBARE, K. KALUBA, L.C. SIAME, E.M. SIAMACHOKA, S.N. MUKONO, B.C. MULENDEMA, H. MUKUPE & P.C. MWIINGA

FOREWORD: In the mid-1950s Henry Fosbrooke, then Director of what now is the Institute for African Studies of the University of Zambia, asked Elizabeth Colson to direct a study of the people whose lives soon were to be disrupted by the construction of the Kariba Dam. Then a graduate student in one of Colson’s courses, I was recruited to work with her We arrived in what was then the Central African Federation in October 1956 to commence a broad research program that is now in its fourtieth year. Since then, many scholars have undertaken further research only a few of whom can be mentioned here. Several years ago, three young colleagues (Sam Clark, Lisa Cliggett and Rhonda Gillett-Netting) joined Colson and myself with the intention of continuing the Gwembe study into the next century. We hope they will be joined by Bennett Siamwiza-lecturer in history at the University of Zambia who is from the Gwembe District and is currently working on his Ph.D at Cambridge University. Two German scholars, Ulrich and Ute Luig, have also completed recent research in the Zambian portion of the Gwembe.

Initially Colson and I worked on both sides of the Zambezi, but after 1964 concentrated on the Zambian side. Revisits to the south bank recommenced after Zimbabwe’s 1980 Independence. In the years that followed, various colleagues at the University of Zimbabwe, including James Murombedzi, Marshall Murphree and Pamela Reynolds also began research within the Gwembe Valley so that today the lives of people originating from the Middle Zambezi Valley have been as well documented as any in Africa.

The decision to build Kariba as the first mainstream dam within the Zambezi River system as opposed to Kafue Gorge dam was as much political as it was economic. During the 1950s little attention was paid by the World Bank (whose Kariba loan was the largest that institution had given to date), the Central African Federation or the Federal Power Board (the predecessor to the Zambezi River Authority) to what might be the impacts on local people whose numbers continued to be underestimated even as construction began. The problems of resettlement were compounded by the short period of time between the 1955 decision to build Kariba and the sealing of the dam in December 1958, and the decision to heighten the dam after construction had commenced – even though people had already begun to clear new gardens and build new houses in areas that were subsequently inundated.

Not only was there insufficient time to plan and implement a credible resettlement programme for the 57,000 people who were eventually forced to move, but insufficient resources were also made available for the task – the responsibility for which was left to the understaffed, underequipped and underfinanced provincial administration on both sides of the river. In both cases district personnel, though hard working and dedicated, were required to implement an inadequate crash programme. In what was then Southern Rhodesia most of the 22,000 resettlers were moved far inland from the future reservoir to sparsely watered and isolated areas in which minimal efforts were made to raise their living standards. For 35,000 people on the north bank, there was insufficient land within the future reservoir basin. As a result 6000 people were moved to the Lusitu area below the dam and over 1000 to the adjacent Plateau. The latter location proved unsatisfactory with most people subsequently returning to the Gwembe Valley. As for the Lusitu, available lands were insufficient to support the resettlers and the host population under their existing system of land use.

Now inhabited by over 20,000 people, today the Lusitu during the height of the dry season resembles wind and dust blown areas immediately south of the Sahara Desert. Because virtually all arable land is under cultivation, inadequate land remains for most young couples as they marry. As a result, in some villages, large numbers of people – up to 50% in at least one case – have left in search of arable lands elsewhere within the middle Zambezi Valley or on the Plateau within Zambia’s Central and Southern Provinces. What lands remain suffer from sheet, gully, wind and splatter erosion which have removed top soil to the extent that in some cases exposed Baobab roots are unable to prevent the trees from toppling over. In drought years, cattle, waiting patiently under winter thorn trees for individual seed pods to drop, die of hunger unless driven elsewhere.

Though an extreme case, the Lusitu - inhabited by some 20,000 people today – is not unique. At the south end of the Valley, near the upper portion of Lake Kariba, people in the large village of Siameja in Chief Mwemba’s area inhabit a similarly degraded habitat where water for domestic use and people’s livestock is even scarcer – one of the ironies of Kariba being the deteriorating water supplies for a majority of the resettled population.

Not only have living standards fallen since the mid-1970s, but their deterioration has been accompanied by community unravelling that is characterized by increased alcohol abuse, violence and theft. Moreover, a formerly effective religion dominated by the concern of the ancestors for the living has been replaced in the minds of many by a belief that witchcraft is now the main cause of individual, household and community misfortune.

Though more land per household exists on the Zimbabwe side of the reservoir, extreme poverty and inadequate water supplies and other infrastructure also exist there. There, too few of the benefits of Kariba have come to those who gave up their homes so that cheap electricity could be transmitted to the urban commercial, industrial, mining and residential sectors of cities and mines outside of the Middle Zambezi Valley. Furthermore, except as low paid labourers, few Gwembe Valley residents have been able to benefit from the kapenta (Limnothissa miodon) fishery that continues to extract up to 20,000 tons of fish annually from the reservoir. A still more recent threat is an influx of wealthy and other immigrants who are acquiring inland, lakeside and island properties for a wide range of subsistence and commercial purposes – often at the expense o...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Additional instrumentation for the safety monitoring system of the Kariba dam wall and its foundations
• Rules and hydrology governing the Zambezi River Authority
• The Batoka hydroelectric scheme
• Kariba dam safety monitoring and resulting maintenance works
• Activities around Lake Kariba; The impact on the lake and environment
• Aims and objectives of the Zambezi River Authority focusing on environment and pollution control of Lake Kariba
• A brief history of the creation of the Zambezi River Authority
• Impacts of the Kariba dam on the displaced community
• Kariba instrumentation – An update
• Water transfer schemes due to uneven spatial distribution – Development projects
• Environmental aspects of water use in arid regions: The Lake Kariba case
• Regional and Bi-national approach to solving common problems in the water sector
• Securing spillways at the Kariba dam
• The importance of politicians in water related development projects
• The Zambezi River Basin – A case study
• Hydro-electric development schemes on the Zambezi River – The Batoka case
• Stabilisation of Kariba south bank case history
• Socio-economic benefits of the Kariba Dam
• Recognising the multiple uses of the Kariba scheme
• Water quality monitoring – Lake Kariba case
• Environmental institutions and legal arrangements – The Lake Kariba case
• Water tariffs and water banking operating rules and guidelines for Lake Kariba
• Recent developments in the integrated management of water resources developments in the Zambezi Basin
• Multinational organizations as avenues of research and cooperation – The Zambezi River Authority
• Process re-engineering and software engineering: Their role in computerization
• The role of database applications in dam safety and maintenance
• Binational projects on the Zambezi River
• Commercial activities of Lake Kariba
• Cyclic hydrological changes of the Zambezi River basin: Effects and mitigatory measures
• The management of the multiple uses of Lake Kariba’s water resources
• A strategic action plan for the sustainable development of the water resources of the Zambezi River basin
• Seismic activities around Lake Kariba
• Kariba Dam’s operation Noah re-launched
• The: status of Lake Kariba
• Some insights into relation between drought, food production and food consumption in the Omay Communal lands, Lake Kariba
• The distribution ecology and economic importance of lakes in Southern Africa
• Synopsis of scientific results of the SAREC sponsored project on the ecology of Lake Kariba
• Appendices