Connect4 water resilience: connecting water resources, communities, drought and flood hazards, and governance across 4 countries in the Limpopo basin

The 'CONNECT4 water resilience' project brings together a multidisciplinary team of hydrologists and sociologists from academia, policy and practice in the UK, Botswana, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Mozambique to investigate the physical and societal factors affecting vulnerability and resilience to drought and floods in 4 countries of the Limpopo River Basin (LRB). The research will provide a better understanding of the connectivity within and between physical and social aspects of vulnerability to improve societal preparedness and resilience to flood and drought hazards in arid Sub-Saharan regions.

The LRB is an arid, water-stressed basin, yet with high susceptibility to floods. It encompasses a large diversity of physical and socio-economical characteristics spread across four countries (Botswana, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Mozambique). Floods and droughts have been shown to exacerbate water availability and quality problems and are predicted to increase in frequency and magnitude.

We will focus on the challenges and opportunities during floods following droughts in the LRB, when aquifers and communities are already under stress, and when appropriate flood management could improve short term coping mechanisms and long-term resilience for future dry seasons. We will explore to what extent geographical differences between sub-regions influence how water resources respond to, and how people cope with floods and droughts in order to inform appropriate water management strategies at various scales (local to transnational).

The research will articulate around three integrated workpackages (WP).

WP1 will assess basin-scale hydrological connectivity, i.e. how droughts and floods propagate in space and time under varying physical conditions (hydrometeorology, physiography, geology, groundwater-surface water interactions), with a focus on how the hydrological response of a specific sub-region influences or is influenced by other regions. This will be achieved though implementation of a basin-scale groundwater-surface water modelling approach and based on existing datasets, in part collected by the project team. Outputs will aid to improve transnational flood and drought monitoring networks and update susceptibility mapping.

WP2 will assess the basin-scale social connectivity, i.e. how drought-flood cycles are understood, anticipated and worked with by local communities and how these communities interact with governance institutions. This will be achieved by carrying out interviews with diverse community groups and with key community-government intermediaries such as extension officers and catchment management fora. Outputs will contribute to understanding how drought/flood risk is perceived by communities and to develop better communication.

WP3 will integrate WP1 and WP2 and will work on the connectivity between social and hydrological systems. It will connect our understanding of multiscale hydrological processes underlying alternating droughts and floods with water resource and risk management, and societal preparedness pathways. This aims to co-create management solutions to reduce impacts and increase benefits of drought-flood cycles throughout the LRB. It will use an iterative, co-production process to strengthen crucial bridges between scientists and water management stakeholders on the appropriate scale(s).

Research outputs will impact (1) people in the LRB and arid regions through enhanced awareness and preparedness to flood and droughts, leading to increased resilience; (2) local and regional authorities via improved hydrological monitoring networks and a strengthened connection from local to transnational levels of governance; (3) general public through public engagement activities; (4) international academics via publications and socio-hydrological datasets on public databases, training of African under- and postgraduate students and development of early career researchers.

This project will have various socio-economic impacts on several groups of beneficiaries:

1-Inhabitants of Southern Africa arid regions: On the short term, local people will enhance their awareness of the issues surrounding water resources and disasters and improve their preparedness to the impacts of floods and droughts. This will be achieved through various interactions with people during the community surveys and the fieldwork activities. On the mid to long-term, wider impact on people from arid regions will be achieved by contributing to increased knowledge of and preparedness to extreme drought/flood events, increased resilience and more sustainable provision of safe water, hence an overall improvement of well-being.

2-Local and regional authorities (governance) in the Limpopo basin: The project will provide capacity building and contribute to improved governance and policy through an evidence-base from both local knowledge and model scenarios. This will inform improved hydrological monitoring networks through the identification of intra-basin areas most vulnerable to floods and droughts, which will contribute to increased preparedness. Impact on the LRB water governance sector will be achieved through their extensive engagement in 1/the local governance interviews (WP2), 2/the community and governance workshops with management scenario simulation (WP3) and 3/the final trans-boundary workshop (WP3).

3-NGOs and Humanitarian response agencies: The improved understanding of extreme events and their impacts across different, connected physical and social geographical regions will also directly feed into ongoing forecasting and emergency response planning. This will be achieved through collaboration with NGO Dabane and Red Cross.

4-UK and African development and cooperation agencies: Agencies such as the UK Department For International Development DFID/UKAid, the Southern African Development Community SADC and LIMCOM will be impacted by gaining new insights on challenges in flood and drought preparedness and water sustainability in arid vulnerable regions of Sub-Saharan Africa. Impact will be facilitated with the collaboration and research synergies with our partner WRC that has close collaboration with these agencies.

5-Undergraduate and postgraduate students in Botswana and the UK: The research will contribute to directly inspiring and training BSc and MSc students from the African Co-Is. through involvement in field research activities which will benefit their career progression. The student community in the UK and African institutions will also be impacted by integration of the key findings into lectures and dissertation projects.

6-Early career researchers in Southern Africa and the UK: The early career researchers from the project CoI team, through work package coordination, contribution to design and delivery of the research, supervision of MSc and BSc students will develop their leadership skills and portfolio.

7-The general public: We will raise public awareness on how water resources and societal resilience are connected and related to climate variability and extremes, through the project website, regional/local media, non-academic publications and contribution to University public engagement events in Aberdeen.