Impacts of global change on southern African water resources systems

Abstract

• The relationship between change which results from global drivers and its impact at local scale is complex and dynamic. • Local economic and social realities exacerbate vulnerability to global change. • In southern Africa impacts of land use have a bigger impact on water resources than climate change. • Given the development focus of the region, this situation is likely to persist for the foreseeable future. • Innovative policy responses from the region exist. However, the extent to which these have been implemented is limited. Southern Africa is considered to be highly vulnerable to the effects of global change. There is increasing evidence of negative demographic and environmental changes influenced by anthropogenic driven local changes in this region and this results in vulnerability exacerbated by the overarching effects of climate change . These are exemplified by the potential impact on water resources and the opportunities, approaches and technologies developed in the region to consider this. Thus, the aim of this paper is to review aspects of global change most critical to southern Africa and assess their interaction with drivers of local change and the vulnerability of society to these changes. Although local changes are influenced by global drivers such as climate change, land-use change and socio-economic development; these changes are not always direct consequences of global drivers and they are rarely instigated by a single global change driver. This review shows that although global drivers are intricately related, their water resources impacts are highly complex and are spatially and temporally sensitive, making it difficult to generalize across the region. It is concluded that the development of context specific technologies, management approaches and policies which can be applied in an integrated and adaptive management framework are an imperative to the development of the region.