Hydropolitical conflict across Africa

In this blog, I will exclusively explore the local hydro-political conflict that has ensued in Namwala District, a rural district located in Southern Zambia within the Kafue River Basin ( Schelle and Pittock, 2006 ).  The Kafue is one of the major tributaries to the Zambezi River with a catchment that occupies some 20% of Zambia’s total land area. Conflict, in this instance, is on a local scale as governance is represented through  the  full council in Namawala District and the majority of vested interests are domestic of those of local farmers and pastoralists ( Funder et al, 2010 ).  Figure 1 - Showing the geographical location of Namwala District in Zambia The provenance of such conflicts can be attributed to two main reasons; the discrepancy in developed water infrastructures in rural areas and insufficient coordination and management of water sources. Unfortunate seasonality in rainfall makes water distribution and conservation extremely varia...

The Pangani River Basin (PRB) covers an area of about 43, 650km2, mostly in Tanzania with approximately 5% in Kenya ( IUCN, 2003 ). For its 3.7 million Tanzanian inhabitants its water and arable land is important and the conflicts surrounding the supply, demand and use of the basin itself are numerous and multifaceted in nature. The number of players and those with stakes or vested interest in the basin's resources are high, making the coordination and ability to please everyone extremely tenacious. Figure 1 - Map of the Pangani River Basin The majority of many hydro political water conflicts are based around the concept of scale, whereby the scale and size of those water players involved determines the power and tract that they hold overall. In this case, conflict of scale is prevalent due to the presence of industrial interests and local and small scale interests. Industrial interests include hydropower supplied by the Tanganyika Electric Supply Company (TANESCO), who ...