Assessing environmental flow requirements and trade-offs for the Lower Zambezi River and Delta, Mozambique

Beilfuss, Richard D.; Brown, Catherine

doi:10.1080/15715121003714837

Cited by 50 publications

(48 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…3). The ZD is formed where the mighty Zambezi river opens out into the flat coastal plain of central Mozambique (Beilfuss et al 2001;Beilfuss and Brown 2010). On floodplain vertisols several woody vegetation communities can be arranged on a gradient of increasing moisture availability from Acacia woodland and savanna to Borassus palm savanna and Hyphaene palm savanna (Beilfuss et al 2001).…”

Section: Southern African Floodplains and Swampsmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Loss of seasonal floods results in desiccation of the floodplains and an inability to produce dry season forage, which is further exacerbated by loss of sediment and nutrient inputs to the floodplains (Scholte et al 2000;Mumba and Thompson 2005;Beilfuss and Brown 2010). While there is a need for development, very careful consideration should be given to the building of dams (or diversion canals) above key wetland systems, especially when these wetlands support large pastoralist societies and large wildlife populations such as in the example of the Logone floodplains (Pamo 1998;Scholte et al 2000), the Zambezi Delta (Beilfuss et al 2001;Beilfuss and Brown 2010), the Kafue floodplains (Mumba and Thompson 2005;Chansa and Kampamba 2009) and the attempted Jonglei Canal around the Sudd Swamps (Howell et al 1988). Similarly, dry season forage production for livestock in the Inner Niger Delta has been greatly reduced by rice farming activities which have removed large areas of E. stagnina floodplains (Homewood 2008;Zwarts et al 2009), while poorly designed rice farming development projects have devastated the Usangu wetlands (Mtahiko et al 2006;Kashaigili et al 2006;Kashaigili 2008).…”

Section: Conclusion and Synthesismentioning

confidence: 99%

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African wetlands and their seasonal use by wild and domestic herbivores

Fynn

Murray-Hudson

Dhliwayo

et al. 2015

Wetlands Ecol Manage

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African wetlands include dambos or headwater valley grasslands in the upper regions of catchments, circular pan grasslands in drainage sumps, linear riverine grasslands in the mid regions of catchments and broad floodplains, swamps and deltas in the lower regions of catchments. Plant zonation on flood frequency and duration gradients occurs in predictable sequences across Africa and this variation combined with increasing retention of soil moisture for plant growth over the dry season with increasing flooding provides critical resource heterogeneity for herbivores. Consequently, wetlands are essential dryseason habitats for wild and domestic herbivore populations across Africa, often providing key resources that buffer herbivore population numbers in the face of severe dry seasons and droughts. Floodplain peripheries and shallow to intermediate-depth floodplains are generally preferred over the early dry season, with deep floodplains and swamps being used by the late dry season and during droughts. Wetland grasslands are generally able to withstand extremely heavy grazing over the dry season without becoming degraded because they are inaccessible to grazers during the period of flooding over the wet season, giving plants a full growing season's recovery period, as well as by wetland grasses storing a large proportion of their biomass in deep root systems and rhizomes. African wetlands are under siege by upstream damming and by agricultural projects and further/ reinforced conservation measures are needed to protect them, such as ecologically designed water releases from dams to maintain flooding regimes and prevention of agriculture on key floodplains for grazers.

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Section: Southern African Floodplains and Swampsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Conclusion and Synthesismentioning

confidence: 99%

African wetlands and their seasonal use by wild and domestic herbivores

Fynn

Murray-Hudson

Dhliwayo

et al. 2015

Wetlands Ecol Manage

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The water resource management and the impacts are highly investigate in literature, more than the alteration in sedimentation rate [15], [19] - [24]. Now the lower accumulation rate of riverine sediments increase the coastal erosion phenomena [25].…”

Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

Enrichment in Heavy Metal (HM) and Rare Earth Element (REE) in Fluvial Placer Deposits: Case Study of Zambesi River (Mozambique)

2016

IJSR

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“…The debate deals with different topics such as ecology, agriculture, fishery, and other economic activities, as well as ethical, social and cultural issues, which are not discussed in the present paper. It is just noteworthy to mention that the first concerns about potential impacts of the Cahora Bassa dam were expressed even before the filling of the reservoir [24,25], and that the discussion is still open as documented, besides already cited works, by a number of papers, dealing with both the evaluation of impacts and the proposal of mitigation measures, considering expected climate change scenarios as well [26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33].…”

Section: Impacts Of Large Dams On the Lower Zambezi Rivermentioning

confidence: 99%

A Survey near Tambara along the Lower Zambezi River

2016

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Abstract:The paper reports a field investigation on a reach of the lower Zambezi River about 230-240 km downstream of the Cahora Bassa dam in the Republic of Mozambique. In the framework of a wider research program, bathymetric measures of the riverbed were performed on a 10 km stretch of the river using an echo sounder, a GPS receiver, and an integrated navigation-acquisition system. Field observations and measures revealed a general agreement with macro-features of river morphology reported in early literature, dealing with the morphological response of the river to the construction of large dams, in the second half of the 20th century. Results hereby reported are some of the few examples of direct field measures in the lower Zambezi reported in literature, and could be used by researchers and practitioners either as a knowledge base for further surveys or as input data for validation and calibration of mathematical models and remote sensing observations.

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Assessing environmental flow requirements and trade-offs for the Lower Zambezi River and Delta, Mozambique

Cited by 50 publications

References 9 publications

African wetlands and their seasonal use by wild and domestic herbivores

African wetlands and their seasonal use by wild and domestic herbivores

Enrichment in Heavy Metal (HM) and Rare Earth Element (REE) in Fluvial Placer Deposits: Case Study of Zambesi River (Mozambique)

A Survey near Tambara along the Lower Zambezi River

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