Blog 7: Closing Blog

As the course and therefore my blog comes to an end, I just wanted to reflect and summarise on this past term, in particular what I have learnt from whilst doing this blog. When I initially heard that one of the course requirements was to blog, I was cautious as to what blogging would entail and whether it would truly challenge me academically. I found that in reality, blogging has been such an interesting and revolutionary way to both learn myself but also educate others. The range of topics and locations that I have been able to encompass in my blog focusing on hydro political conflict in mostly Southern Africa, have been numerous. I've been able to fit so much more knowledge and research into one blogging site, rather than just a few essays. Even the knowledge and information I've gained that didn't end up making it into the blogs themselves, has been multifaceted and eye opening.

I hope that by using case studies as the primary basis and structure of my blogs, I've been able to really delve into the details of hydro political conflict and how the nature of these are wide ranging and multifaceted, particularly in a region like Southern Africa. By covering conflict in water engineering projects, transboundary water sources, local water sources and the potential cooperation that can come out of conflict, I have been able to explore cases of several different natures, all with their own, different complications. What was of particular interest to me, was my blog on the local scale of hydro political conflict in Namwala District, Zambia. Much of the publicity and research on hydro political conflict is on a much larger scale, encompassing transboundary water sources where often national military strength and international government powers are in play. When I came across a significant amount of research on a local hydro political conflict, this really sparked my interest and I was really excited to learn about such a conflict in such a different manner, exploring the nuances and nature of the case study that was so different to others I had researched.

Overall, I hope this case study has effectively, efficiently and coherently outlined and explored in depth hydro political conflict in Eastern and Southern Africa, giving an objective and detailed account of case studies and raising awareness of the multifaceted nature of the water crisis in Africa.

Thank you! Rose

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