Climate variability is set to increase, characterised by extreme conditions in Africa. Southern Africa will likely get drier and experience more extreme weather conditions, particularly droughts and floods. However, while climate risks are acknowledged to be a serious threat to smallholder farmers' livelihoods, these risks do not exist in isolation, but rather, compound a multiplicity of stressors. It was important for this study to understand farmer perceptions regarding the role of climate risks within a complex and multifarious set of risks to farmers' livelihoods. This study used both qualitative and quantitative methods to investigate farmers' perceptions regarding threats to livelihoods in southern Zambia and south-western Zimbabwe. While farmers report changes in local climatic conditions consistent with climate variability, there is a problem in assigning contribution of climate variability and other factors to observed negative impacts on the agricultural and socio-economic system. Furthermore, while there is a multiplicity of stressors that confront farmers, climate variability remains the most critical and exacerbate livelihood insecurity for those farmers with higher levels of vulnerability to these stressors.

a b s t r a c tThe world community faces many risks from climate change, with most scenarios indicating higher temperatures and more erratic rainfall in Africa. Predictions for southern Africa suggest a general decrease in total seasonal rainfall, accompanied by more frequent in-season dry spells that will significantly impact crop and livestock production, and hence economic growth in the region. The hardest hit will be the rural poor in the drier areas, where crop failure due to drought is already common and chronic food emergencies afflict the region in most years. Lessons can be learnt on how the rural poor currently cope with the vagaries of climate and these can be used to help them adapt their current production systems to the future threats of further climate change. But this assumes the institutions that work towards the economic empowerment of the rural poor have the requisite skills to understand their current coping strategies and how adaptation can be facilitated. A new initiative led by Midlands State University and the Zambian Meteorological Office proposes that improving the ability of institutions that train the 'Future Change Agents', who will subsequently support smallholder communities in adapting their agricultural practices to current climate variability, is the first step in building adaptive capacity to cope with future climate change. The capacity of African scientists, regional organizations and decision-makers in dealing with the issues of climate change and adaptation will be enhanced on a continuing basis, and the impacts of their agricultural development programs improved.

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Abstract. To evaluate the effects of variations in rainfall on groundwater, long-term rainfall records were used to simulate groundwater levels over the period 1953-96 at an experimental catchment in south-east Zimbabwe. Two different modelling methods were adopted. Firstly, a soil water balance model (ACRU) simulated drainage from daily rainfall and evaporative demand; groundwater levels were predicted as a function of drainage, specific yield and water table height. Secondly, the cumulative rainfall departure method was used to model groundwater levels from monthly rainfall. Both methods simulated observed groundwater levels over the period 1992-96 successfully, and long-term simulated trends in historical levels were comparable. Results suggest that large perturbations in groundwater levels area a normal feature of the response of a shallow aquifer to variations in rainfall. Long-term trends in groundwater levels are apparent and reflect the effect of cycles in rainfall. Average end of dry season water levels were simulated to be almost 3 m higher in the late 1970s compared to those of the early 1990s. The simulated effect of prolonged low rainfall on groundwater levels was particularly severe during the period 1981-92 with a series of low recharge years unprecedented in the earlier record. More recently, above average rainfall has resulted in generally higher groundwater levels. The modelling methods described may be applied in the development of guidelines for groundwater schemes to help ensure safe long-term yields and to predict future stress on groundwater resources in low rainfall periods; they are being developed to evaluate the effects of land use and management change on groundwater resources.