Issue 3 of the Ephemeral River Basins Project Newsletter has arrived in HOORC's Library. This issue's lead story describes the February 2008 visit by Boteti River community representatives to the Okavango Delta Panhandle to learn about factors affecting downsteam water flow. The project is working on shared management of natural resources in three SADC ephemeral basins: the Boteti River Basin in...
HOORC geographer Dr Cornelis Vanderpost reports that recently increased outflows from the Delta in the south-west have resulted in Lake Ngami once again filling with water. The two MODIS images below show how the size of the lake has increased between August 10th (first image) and August 18th (second image).
At Maun, the Thamalakane River also has plenty of water:
In HOORC's...
The web site of the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) recently reported the 16th Nile Council of Ministers of Water Affairs of the Nile Basin Initiative on July 21 and 22, 2008 in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo. The meeting was attended by representatives of Burundi, DRC, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, Uganda and Tanzania as well as development and bilateral and...
The 9th WaterNet/WARFSA/GWP-SA Symposium, Water and Sustainable Development for Improved Livelihoods takes place this year at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa on 29 – 31 October 2008. The symposium promotes interaction among policymakers, academics, practitioners and ultimately all those involved in the water sector as well as key cooperating partners in...
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued its technical paper on Climate Change and Water (full text, pdf, 5.09 MB). The report makes the point that climate, freshwater, biophysical and socio-economic systems are interconnected in complex ways -- a change in any one of these can induce a change in any other. Because freshwater-related issues are critical in determining key...
The WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation has issued a new report, Progress on drinking water and sanitation, that describes global progress towards the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target for drinking-water and sanitation, and analyses what these trends suggest for the remainder of the UN Decade "Water for Life" (2005 - 2015). Learn more from the WHO press...
Wetlands specialists, including HOORC researchers Professor Lars Ramberg and Dr Piotr Wolski, attending the 8th INTECOL International Wetlands Conference in Brazil, issued the Cuiaba Declaration on the last day of the conference July 25th, 2008, calling for more conservation of the world's marshes, tidal marshes, peat bogs, swamps, river deltas, mangroves, tundra, lagoons and river...
Nineteen University of Botswana undergraduate students completed their work for HOORC's Winter Course this week, wrapping up their fieldwork assignments with presentations of the results of their research. This year's work included economics studies from Mbakile P. Seabe - Household attitudes and willingness to pay for the conservation of Lake Ngami, Botswana -- Kaelo Galeage - The impact of...
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fisheries,
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Water Resources
The July 2008 issue of the Spatial Data Infrastructure - Africa Newsletter includes a story about the new FAO/IFAD report, Water and the Rural Poor: Interventions for Improving Livelihoods in Sub-Saharan Africa, with a focus on the part that provides interactive maps. The other two parts of the report are titled Water, agriculture and rural livelihoods, and Interventions in water to improve...
From the Botswana Government Gazette, Vol. XLVI, no. 35, 6 June 2008
Tender: Republic of Botswana: consultancy services for regional integration of Botswana’s transport sector study
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Tender: Tawana Land Board: tourism related sites identification in the Okavango Delta Ramsar Site (ODRS) second publication
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From the Botswana Government Gazette, Vol. XLVI, no. 36, 13 June 2008
Statutory...
Maun river front study : the relation between a village and a river in Botswana : a landscape architectural study : a minor field study by Michael Bergman and Inga-Lill Cras was published in 1994 by the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences as part of its Working Paper series. Field work for the study was initiated by Botswana's District Land Use Planning Unit to look at the use and...
Collared pronghorn antelope in Cain's US study
HOORC heard a presentation today from Dr James Cain of the University of the Witwatersrand who has been working on the monitoring of large mammals in the southwestern United States and in Kruger National Park with Professor Norman Owen-Smith. Dr Cain spoke about their studies of the consequences of developing water sources for wildlife. Findings...
A newly published article by HOORC economist Donald Kgathi and associate Julie Wilk, Risk in the Okavango Delta in the face of social and environmental change in Geojournal, looks at results of a survey of four villages in the Okavango Delta. Households were questioned about strategies they used to cope with recurring hazards such as drought, reduced flooding and animal disease. Results of the...
Freshwater Ecoregions of the World, (FEOW) aims to provide a global biogeographic regionalization of the Earth's freshwater biodiversity. Covering virtually all freshwater habitats on Earth, this ecoregion map, with associated species data, is to be used for underpinning global and regional conservation planning efforts, particularly to identify outstanding and imperiled freshwater systems; for...
IISD Linkages has reported on the Third International Conference on Managing Shared Aquifer Resources in Africa, which took place in Tripoli, Libya, from 25-27 May 2008, where an overview of the 38 Transboundary Aquifer Systems in Africa, prepared by the International Hydrological Programme of UNESCO, the Global Environmental Facility’s International Waters Programme and various universities,...
HOORC hydrologist Dr Piotr Wolski returned this week from two international conferences, Ecohydrological Processes and Sustainable Floodplain Management : Opportunities and Concepts for Water Hazard Mitigation, and Ecological and Socioeconomic Sustainability, held in Lodz, Poland in May 2008 and the Annual Meeting of the Society of Wetland Scientists (SWS) in Washington, D.C. from May 26th to...
Freshwater Reviews, a new publication of the Freshwater Biological Association, is a peer reviewed international journal dedicated to enhancing the understanding of inland waters. The content of review papers is primarily biological but papers covering limnology, policy and socio-economic aspects of fresh waters are accepted. Freshwater is interpreted widely, embracing all inland waters...
Dr Kalwij's research team at Chobe water point
HOORC's Library had a visit today from Dr Jesse Kalwij (email kalwij(a)sun.ac.za), postdoctoral fellow at Stellenbosch University, who has recently completed his fieldwork about the long term vegetation dynamics around artificial water points in the Nogatsaa area of Chobe National Park. Monitoring of vegetation in the area began in 1997 with...
The deadline for submission of abstacts for the fourth International Symposium on Transboundary Waters Management, conference that will be held in Thessaloniki, Greece on 15th to 18th October 2008, has been extended to 15 June...
The World Bank's Briefing Notes Series on Groundwater Management: Key Concepts & Tools was begun in 2002 to provide reader-friendly information about groundwater management and protection, and has been expanded based on needs and demands. The reports provide a concise introduction to groundwater, with each note answering frequently-asked questions about different facets of the subject,...
Seasonal and inter-annual photosynthetic response of representative C4 species to soil water content and leaf nitrogen concentration across a tropical seasonal floodplain by K. B. Mantlana, A. Arneth, E. M. Veenendaal, P. Wohland, HOORC hydrologist Piotr Wolski, O. Kolle and J. Lloyd, reports the findings of five measurement campaigns carried out with three plant species in Okavango Delta...
The UN Library's web log, UN Pulse, has alerted us to the fifth report on shared natural resources on Transboundary Aquifers, (A/CN.4/591). The report has been submitted for the consideration of the International Law Commission and presents draft articles on transboundary aquifers for consideration. You can find out more about the ILC's consideration from the online chapter on shared natural...
Workshop participants on field trip to Lake Ngami
Fifty-six natural resources researchers from Africa, Europe and the United States met in Maun on March 3rd to 5th 2008 to discuss and plan for new multidisciplinary research in the Kalahari. The workshop, organized by HOORC, brought together people currently engaged in studying environmental change in Africa, with a specific focus on four topic...
While the contents of this post was lifted in its entirety from the web site of Songhai Centere it was taken from different pages in the web site to give the reader a broad scope of the organization's activities in a very short space.In the early 1980's, a small group of people led by Father Godfrey Nzamujo determined that the level of development in Africa was grossly insufficient and sought to restore dignity to the African people. The result was the creation of the Songhai Center. Named after the famed 15th-century Malian empire, Songhai is a center for training, for production, research and development of sustainable agricultural practices. The movement seeks to augment the standard of living of Africa's populations using the following methods for the creation of viable agricultural...
Paste 08, the 11th International Seminar on Paste and Thickened Tailings, will be held in Kasane from 5th to 9th of May 2008. The aim of the meeting is to promote the technology of paste and thickened tailings as a technological alternative solution to conventional mine waste disposal. The objective of hosting this seminar in Botswana is to emphasize the importance of responsible water usage in...
While much of the world has been fixated on the violence that followed flawed elections in Keny’s presidential elections in December of 2007, hard working NGOs have been able to keep a focus on other problems in the country as well.Below is a report published by ActionAid on February 29, 2008 trying to raise awareness about a drought that is threatening lives in of people as well as livestock in Kenya.------------------------------------------------------------------------ Kenya’s pastoralist communities in crisis29 February 2008Drought threatens North Eastern Province and areas of the southern Coast region. “Pastoralist people are facing crisis in Kenya’s North Eastern Province (bordering Somalia) and in some neighbouring districts of Coast province, because of drought and the...
The Centre of African Studies at the University of Porto, Portugal (CEAUP), is inviting researchers and practitioners to contribute with water management experiences and case-studies from all regions of Africa, and to participate in a wide debate on hydro-pessimism and hydro-optimism in the African context at a conference in Porto on 2-3 October 2008. Deadline for abstracts is 30th April 2008....
From the Botswana Government Gazette, Vol. XLVI, no. 4, 18 January 2008
Tender: Republic of Botswana Dept. of Water Affairs: provision of consulting services for water tariff study
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From the Botswana Government Gazette, Vol. XLVI, no. 5, 25 January 2008
Tender: Republic of Botswana: management and operation of 15 public camp grounds/camp sites (Chobe National Park, Khutse Game Reserve,...
This year’s 9th Waternet/WAFRSA/GWPSA Symposium will be held from 29 – 31 October 2008 in association with the International Association for Hydrological Sciences (IAHS) in Johannesburg. The theme of the Waternet meeting will be “Water and Sustainable Development for Improved Livelihoods”. IAHS will be holding at the same time sessions for their International Commission on Water Resources...
From the Botswana Government Gazette, Vol. XLVI, no. 1, 4 January 2008
Government notice 17 of 2008: Road Transport (Permits) Act: Road Transport (Permits) Regulations: application for road transport permits: "P" Permits for mobile safaris and tourism: Custos Safaris, Moremi Safaris, Francolin Support Service, Karibu Safari, Okavango Wilderness, Hemingway Safaris, Calypso Agencies, Africa...