Surface Water and Temperature in Zimbabwe

Greetings Zimbabwe Africa and the rest of the world welcome to yet another edition of Beyond tomorrow a program where we look at all things to do with climate change conservation as well as the environment last week we were talking about carbon credits we were talking about the El Nino and many other interesting things with the permanent secretary in the ministry of environment uh Professor maton on the platform and to just continue on that trajectory on issues to do with water resources and all things to do with
temperature rising and suace runoff we’ve in the building today an amazing amazing individual a passionate individual who’s been following things to do with catchment areas in Zimbabwe rful patterns you name it Dr Webster gum doc welcome to the show thank you very much for having me it’s a pleasure we’ve been discussing that you would come and finally your day has come it’s good to finally make it here yeah yeah um just give us a brief introduction people would want to know who this doctor is

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and what he’s all about all right so thank you T So Dr web is a hydrologist uh a scientist and a researcher um at the University of Zimbabwe um but I’ve done several work as you given in my um introduction uh on Water Resource Management uh on catchment protection um on Environmental Management issues so that’s really my background 15 years experience in that both teaching research uh and also Publications around those areas to do with climate environment and Water Resource Management wonderful Dr today’s topic is

effects of climate change on rainfall surface water and temperature yeah what are we picking when we are in the field this is you when you go out and you’re doing these uh tests and

following things in different catchment areas in the country what is the Outlook all right thank you very much so uh much of the work uh involves us going in the field like you’ve mentioned the length and breadth of Zimbabwe but at some point we also go uh even Beyond Zimbabwe and the southern African um you know River catchments so we are seeing um a

historical Trend uh in climate so let me just emphasize the fact that that when speak about climate we main look at the variables which are temperature which are rainfall which are transpiration which are runoff but maybe let me zero in on the first three to look at the Historical and um I would expect that maybe during the course of this uh discussion we move into the future but let’s start for us to understand the future we have to understand the historical so research that we have done in the length and breadth of the country
but also in southern Africa shows that um for example rainfall has decreased in most parts of the country uh looking at the specific stations where we measure rainfall so historical records which are SK 200 years old shows that um rainfor is actually decreased but also um this has mainly been in areas such as the masingo province the M North and South in sub parts of M L we have seen a significant decrease in in rainfall over the past years but also looking at temperature temperature has also decreased um when we follow the
trends in the um the trends recorded at various stations that measure temperature so this also in the same catchments that I’ve spoken about uh such as um the catchments that overlap with mellan north mellan south part of Midlands and also in masingo then also VAP transpiration is also you know increased so in a nutshell rainfall is showing to decrease temperature is showing to increase and VAP transportation is also showing to increase but let me draw a little bit also on the on the temperature we have seen some heat waves I think you have 

seen that increase in maximum temperatures but also even the the minimum temperatures have also gone much also lesser and the maximum temperatures have also gone much higher but also the average temperature has increased but we have seen the increase in the heat waves I think we’ve seen from the meteorological safy Department issuing those warnings in the past recent years to say for example around October November and getting into December so this is what we have seen um around the country uh which is something that we
need to to look at this has been confirmed uh by you know statistical analysis on the records that we have this has also been confirmed by even other researchers not necessarily from us uh which are researching on the same subject so I said this is the Outlook that we see from the historical records yeah on temperature we picking that it will be a warmer winter this year compared to other years there uh so just to go back onto the rful patterns I was doing a bit of research you are the fundi in the building so you help me
this I was looking at a paper on risks of climate change on future water supply in small hold irrigation schemes in Zimbabwe the paper was or the journal was done by Li mingui Raymond mandani and paramu MAF mafongoya they state that uh the impact of climate change is projected to severely reduce Zimbabwe’s Water Resources like you rightfully said rainfall simulations in the Zig guay and sabak catchment areas have shown a decrease in precipitation by 15 to 18% and an increase in the evaporation by 7.
5 to 133% uh when you looking at these figures and you’ve just confirmed it in your outlook there what does this mean for rainfed agriculture already we are dealing with the elino phenomenon M where at least 7 million people in the country as of yesterday’s uh post cabinet briefing which stated that at Le just over 7 million people need uh food uh Aid due to the effects of the El Nino but looking into the future rainfed agriculture is it sustainable and what about irrigation is it also going to be something we can
sustain given that the painful is reducing all right so thank you for that because we’ve touched a lot of issues and I’m also happy that this study by these researchers including mafongoya they’ve also confirmed to the research that we’ve also done across the length and breadth of the country and what we have seen uh to confirm these statistics is that u in certain regions um for example in the manikal land there’s going to be um you know a rainfall decrease by something which is 5 to 15%
when you get to the Mas and Province such as masland East Central and masland West we’re going to have something like um you know 10 to 20 but when you go to the dry you know provinces such as parts of masingo M North M South is something which is going to be from 20 to 30% decrease in rainfall so that decrease in rainfall accom by much increase in temperature in the heat waves certainly the issue of the rainfed agriculture something that we would need to look at and see the sustainability so which means that we are going to have less
rainfor being received on land but also going to increase there’s also going to be an increase in the VAP r and v transpiration rates which means the little that we are going to receive there’s going to be much uh you know pressure on that little which means that the rainfed agriculture is something that going to be much strange so which means that at a smaller scale like plot scale the farmers they have to look at supplementary efforts such as irrigation which you rightly put across as confirmed by these um researchers and
the authors so it means that there’s to be some supplement because as we look in the future BR the global climate models which are you know the international models that we use to to uh to quantify the amount of change of the rainfall the amount of change of the temperature and the amount of water on the surface they do confirm from Station to Station from place to place uh of the fact that you know there’s much shortage that we’re going to experience in the future but let me also remind you takuzo that there

are certain pockets in the country where the rainf is actually predicted to be increasing but that’s not a problem the problem is these main areas of the shortages so supplementing with a is the way to go but if you are saying the levels of rainfall are decreasing MH let’s say I’m in in manland yes and I’m listening someone is listening right now and they’re saying the levels of rainfall are dropping does that not then affect my catchment and even the irrigation look at the sa River today we
don’t have much water there yes in December because because of the the rains that we experienced those heavy rains for a prolonged period of time the river was full but after a while it went back to what are now factory settings where there’s no water what does this thing mean and what what should authorities do all right so from what you have said you rightly put it across so we need this climate adaptation strategies such as harvesting the rainfall um so harves rainfall is maybe in two three ways but there’s what to
call the catchment harvesting such as the daming right so if you got increase in the dams in the country but also equipping these dams um so so that um you know the irrigation schemes are also equipped with the right um you know equipment for my grandmother who is in sh to also to be able to benefit from the irrigation but there’s also even the rooftop harvesting of the water so that when the rainfall falls on my roof surface we’re going to harvest it so someone from your question who is in manal land yes our records actually
shows that in the rainfall in the wter season right uh at times an increase in the rainfall but the problem is also in the drer season right uh remember in our when we passed through this season we had a long dry spell so going to see an increase in the long spells we’re going to see a decrease in the actual amount of the rainfall being received so it means that that little that we going to be receiving let’s Harvest it in one way or the other I’ve seen also even manent in their step slope they do what called
check dams check DS are these small Pawn small dams where they they used also to control so erosion but also to increase the moish around because what we saw from the crops witing was a result of of the water stress but when we begin to have these smaller Dam smaller pawns everywhere in the country depending on the terrain there’s going to be increase in the moisture and so during the dry spare the crop can have a a supplement for it but maybe let’s move away from um from the manikal land and also go in
other place such as the Victoria Force we have seen in the past years to say I think we’ve seen on social media to say Victoria Force dry yes because you know in the winter season it’s not a problem but the challenge is in the dry season we need tourist 365 days so it is we are seeing an increase or the decrease in the runoff the water the Victoria force during the dry season so part of our research and the data confirms that the drer SPs are quite long and are going to impact on the tourism wow yeah so this
is not only just an issue affecting food security correct but it spans across these other sectors the different [Music] sectors let’s bring it to harar yeah um you’ve been working with different associations and activists who have been saying don’t build here on the Wetland don’t do this uh looking at these Dynamics mhm and yet we are seeing an expansion of residential areas access to water what’s the projection there and what do we need to do as a nation to ensure that those new suburbs that are popping up we know
we have got a new city that’s being worked on currently uh in Mount Hampton MH how do we ensure that those people that are going to go there are not going to have challenges of water like some of us in you know yes so that’s an interesting Dimension you’ve mentioned so yeah you know it’s good to have developmental activities happening you know infrastructure development which is quite good but we also have to be conscious about the environment because it’s like a um it’s um it’s a web so that web
ensures that if I build on a wetland if I destroy the Wetland so this Wetlands they what to call the head water Wetlands where your River for example River in it starts somewhere River starts somewhere in grassland if I was going to say River starts somewhere maybe um in the and Riv around if build on those areas also even in the new city there are many tributaries that would feed into the Miami River and Mai River so in this areas tza what happens is that it decreases the recharge so recharge is the amount of water if it
rains that gets into into the system so once we decrease the recharge it means that even the the storages are also going to to be affected what are storages these are the various you know platforms within the e that holds water so on these storages are destroyed it means that know all the water is just going down going down going down for in our case here all the that RS in and around goes goes to the Indian Ocean so instead of holding that water So eventually the water supply for the new city for greater AR is going to
be affected but the good thing is that um your was also involved in the master plan of the of the new city Mount hden as part of our work at the univers of Zimbabwe so part of the work that we we we put across the green zones say these areas are prohibited but also to expand it further tuno for the first time in the history of Zimbabwe we’ve got a wetland master plan we we managed to delineate all the wetlands not only ofar but in your sha and every across the country what does that mean it means that if you’re a proper developer you
have to go through Environmental Management ages then they show you the weight L that we delineated that Wetland is going to show you to say there’s a sensitive Wetland intermediate sensitive Wetland and there’s a wetland which is not necessarily sensitive so each development of the property is associated with the the sensitivity of the Wetland so what does it mean that the the government through this de through the Environmental Management agents but also now working with various Ministries they now have a policy
framework to guide you know or to stop the deterioration of sensitive ecosystem all that is linked to climate change mhh yeah okay so you are saying if authorities stick to the science to the facts that you provided for with uh from your research with these green zones in the new city for instance yeah they will not be serious Water Challenges there will not be serious Water Challenges exactly yeah including some policy not necessarily the scientific work but let me draw you to uh even to places such as I know it asked about manikal land
Harari but even you know Place such as kibba there because remember climate change affects all the different sectors including the Hydro power so we have seen that uh sometimes it’s a management activities or the management decisions which affect the way even climate impacts on us so sometimes the shortages in Hydro power um not sometimes the shorten Hydro power is actually linked to the climate change if we got decrease in the rainfor activity in the Upp it results in in in in little runoff trickling into the Carib
but we also want the policies that actually help to conserve the little that we have in the Carib that’s why sometimes we got those scheduling of the uh electricity Etc all those are policies that we as investor Zimbabwe have got input into so those policies are also very important in the adaptation strategies around climate change talking about Hydro power yeah when we look at what’s happening in kibba growing up would know at a certain time it was actually a phenomenon people would actually go out it was a tourist
attraction to see those Gates will we ever see that happening again I think we’re going to see that happening it’s very interesting question but let me draw uh the viewers to the phenomena that you know reduced rainfor activity in droughts is not a phenomenon that started in recently but we’ve got a history of those ones from the 1800 for example from the 19102 there was a drought 1905 there was a drought going now 1982 was a drought 19 around 1991 92 95 including the most recent years so we’ve got record that
show that around 100 years from the past 100 years droughts of 10 year interval and the the the Run of in the water level in Carib has always been low we’ve been experiencing that but of course to climate this has worsened in in the past recent Years also from our data but this thing we’ve always had but also there’s also the issue of the L change which which helps to you know to to weaken or which helps as as a stressor to the already stress that we experienc because of climate change and a warrant you
know cutting down of trees the deforestation so I’m saying that we have this 10 year gaps in the future around kibba certainly the GES are going to open maybe next year if the the season improves but also expect that after some time that’s why we need to plan our problem might be the lack of planning but our record shows us actually if you come to the invest will show you that when next are we going to have droughts wow going in the future because that data is there nowadays with the remote sensing icial intelligence I can tell
you that this year and that year and that year as much as you can leave tell so where are people like you when the nation is going through such a tough space because now the president recently as you know says that we need about 2 billion US Dollars just to cover US during this uh lean period because of the drought but if the the University of Zimbabwe is well resourced and with people like you and your colleagues surely isn’t this the education 5.
0 that the minister Prof is pushing for that speaks to to Solutions that’s very true so timely warnings but timely warnings that are begged by scientific data that’s what we need for the country and we also willing as invest to partner with you know uh the ministry responsible but also some developmental agencies and also stations like yours that help to disseminate the knowledge just before you go for aak you spoke about water I mean rainfor Inari it all wases away and goes to the Indian Ocean I’ve heard people
saying give us the the real science behind that process are we really failing to utilize these RS because and it can you know have flash floods in m and then the water disappears but like we all know many subbs in Harari don’t have water and we know there’s a new dam being constructed what can we do about that rainfall that water we get before we lose it all out to the Indian Ocean all right I problems they M faceted but I just bring just a small Dimension to it and then um one one of the things is that um we need to
increase in this what we call the recharge the recharge zones we are continuously destroying the recharge zones so around the 1980s if you check our you know the maps of arar like what call the master plant they these Open Spaces a lot of them right now if you drive from here to n you see some of the Open Spaces being occupied what you’re trying to do is that you’re reducing the recharge zones if you going to drive from here to Cha you see that there were a lot of these Open Spaces but someone right now is going to say I found my
space but that space was left open not only to beautify the city but these were meant to be breathing spaces for the city to recharge the whole system so that’s Point number one but however you know our DS like manami and like Cho um fairly they sufficient water to supply the city but you know there’s another dimension we are sitting Upstream the city Upstream of the deps so that’s an interesting scenario in which you Tak go the world that you drink from and then you try to do something on that well that’s the that we do as Harari so
we need a lot of this catchment management um you know practices because you know from the hospitals from the industries from the mining from the agriculture from someone dumping their way every all go that because the dams are on the lowerline you know areas so the the C that are involved to purify that water so that’s really the problem the main problem with the harar uh water supply that’s why this they talk now of the kungji dam so it’s now you know it’s going to be less costly to bring water
from Ki Dam far as it is to AR than the ca of purifying the water so in a nutshell this is the complication that’s why you find that that a a different city right would have less problems than we have for like for M Etc ET for for their situation that they were less rains yeah but if they were good rains their pollution issues they less compared to Harari yeah interesting all right we’re going to take a break that was really really some education processes there class geography time when we come back we’re going to be
talking about cycling what is happening in regards cycling I know many of you are always hearing the Cyclone this coming it has hit mosm Beek the expert is in the building he’ll tell us how Cyclones come about and what the future holds for Zimbabwe welcome back to the second segment off Beyond tomorrow we are talking all things to do with rainfall temperature increases and decreases in some part of the of the country and the World At Large we’ve got the hydrologist in the building Dr Webster Guma doc
let’s talk about Cyclones yes when people hear about Cyclones the easiest reference is Cyclone die all right we’ve had many Cyclones since ER time in Memorial and projections are due to climate change we’re going to see an increase of cyclones how is Zimbabwe positioned in terms of receiving these Cyclones all right thank you very much so like you rightly uh pointed out you know the issue of cyclones something is very topical Even in our research activities we now have um you know a research activity around tropical
Cyclones but these are low pressure systems that develops in the ocean in our case they develop in the Indian Ocean so it’s a low pressure system that will begin um you know to to command strong winds that will move um from the ocean going Inland but you know what it’s actually said that Cyclones they develop almost every second every minute in the Indian Ocean the difference is that they don’t get to reach the land so it has to be of uh you know um much spent um and much um viciousness for it to to arrive on the land so the first uh
from our situation southern Africa the first place to be hit there is uh you know moek because of its um geographical position and then that’s why it moves the closer you know towns or cities within Zimbabwe the m so yeah of 2019 has been I think of much uh much destruction and even the the loss of lives as we’ have seen um from from that experience but there’s always been Cyclones remember the Cyclone um jaffet Cyclone El etc etc they’ve been happening but sometimes they’ve been around the B Bridge area or around the
zamb B but in the most recent years we’ve seen that they FV this route that pass around so um in the in the subject we are discussing of of climate we also need to be much prepared um you know to reduce the impact of the impacts of these Cyclones what can authorities do I know there are a lot of Developmental partners that have come in set up setting up different infrastructure you know like systems that can detect M and uh I know the undp has a new system that was introduced I believe last year or late 20 December
2022 where they have a system where people can actually record and information is disseminated to the ministry uh of um uh Public Works on time what can be done to avoid the situation that we saw in in in in in Chim money all right to me it hinges on mapping mapping taka is what is the path followed by the Cyclone by the way Cyclone have got a path just like you and want to go TOA you have a path you drive through a certain path if you’re going to use intelligence know that there what to call a hot spot which is the path that
you take most frequently so also for Cyclones don’t just rapidly or H they follow a favorable because that favorable path is to have less distruction and moisture so the first thing we need to do is to do the mapping of this path so we did that for the past I think 50 to 100 years with one of our Master student at the University of Zimbabwe which is a paper that I’m willing to share on on our platform I think I saw you on Linked In we can we can share that paper which shows for southern Africa the the frequency or
which path these different Cyclones they tend to take so once we know that this is the path and then the second issue will be we we avoid right uh you know develop mental projects around that including settlements we need to remove people to say this is the most frequent path in is baffa region can we resettle people away from this path right then number three um some areas may not necessarily be on the path but the topographical location like the slope etc etc because once a c let’s say pass through these offices we know that
within for example a 40 kilom radius either side those areas if they are steep that’s why what saw cycl some place that were steep they begin to experience mad flow right land slides so those are some of the things that we need to to do then of course we go into the issue of the infrastructure but of course um the last thing according to me will be the early warning we need early Warning Systems what are these this something that would trigger something to the community or to the developmental agencies for example in aing system we
tell you Tak to say if you receive such amount of rainfall and I’m situated on such a slope and I’m this distance from a river and um you know I’m this type of soil which is susceptible then that should trigger a warning wow right I think we’ve seen it in the past few years the government trying to you know to to relocate not to relocate but at least to move people that was good was a result of an early warning of course it needs to be improved but that’s really the concept so we’ve developed models
like I’ve said which helps for us to know to say ify of because if it re for example in a day 80 mm which is too much for a day because of the East topograph we know that there’s a potential maybe lens slight so that’s something that can help to save lives wow you keep referring to artificial intelligence yeah it seems contrary to popular belief they sign in Zimbabwe where where is the disconnect because it seems you guys at the University of Zimbabwe have the equipment and you’re moving but it appears when we talk to
the politicians there’s a gap where is the the the where is the gap coming from because I believe with such knowledge if you guys merge we always here I was referring to our colleagues here to say you look at the covid vaccine whether they worked or not but you hear on different platforms Oxford University has developed this has developed this why can’t we have University of Zimbabwe students because I’m I continually push because when you talk to minister Mor he keeps saying we want Solutions and I
think you’re speaking Solutions you’re already talking of AI but when you go on social media people have a perception our government does not accept techn Tey they just don’t move in that space what can be done to synchronize this amazing data you have and input it into daytoday government running all right so I think let me borrow from uh you know Professor Mora he sings but we also sing from the same him book with him about education 5.
0 which is education which have which has moved beyond the teaching and learning beyond the uh research and Community engagement so we added two more pillars which are Innovation and industrialization so from that those five pillars we’re able to say that the research that we do should be able to change lives we educate communities we improve the life LS of people so going are the days when we do a dissertation that we go and just shelf yes but now we say um when we doing a research we need to hear for example from the communities in zambesi
communities in Shing and shim man what do they want what type of early warning system so when they tell us we begin to research around the solutions related to that problem but of course the culture and the country has always been saying academics such as us and researchers we do research we show of it they also have their problems and sometimes they look for other farfetched uh you know people who can provide solutions for them but we are there the university as researchers and our students we have got some solutions.

going back to the AI we also saying that artificial intelligence feeds on data that is collected so over the past years we’ve been in the communities in the liopo we’ve been there in the M we’ve been there in the zamb we’ve been there in the P we’ve been there in shim man we have collected a lot of data which we have in our database that we are saying from the government departments developmental Partners including you guys from the media a lot of data that we have but for us don’t only do with
artificial intelligence but we do with what’s called special artificial intelligence artificial intelligence has got location because location matters we put the way aspect to it and that makes it so interesting for example we’ve got um one of our students who developed a model which shows in 2019 how did the mud flow you know the land slides it was some M just flowing from the steeper areas which part did it take and how many household did it potentially destroy all that information maybe they are not take us but got publication that
we can share looks like a movie because I think that’s what Hollywood does it just Taps into fundies like you and boom they amazing unfortunately we’ve run out of time but as we conclude yeah H I will definitely come to the University of Zimbabwe I think we need to do a side visit which has nothing to do with Studio where we actually show these things because we on the platform we like to show things what’s your advice to a farmer the president is big on food security right now because it’s becoming
a problem not only in Zimbabwe in the region Africa and the World At Large because of climate change what’s your advice to a farmer uh who’s out there in light of these projected low rainfalls and uh rise in temperature three advice that I have to a farmer number one inv invest in in storage infrastructure a day might be too costly for a farmer because maybe the government or development or partner but I’m just looking at storage such as some water tanks you know the 5,000 lit 10,000 lit water tanks where they can
Harvest water do you know the amount of water that can be harvested from the surface year of this Studio that’s a lot if that water is going to be used in the dry season we we we remove the the water spress that we saw in the food food shortages that’s number one then number two they also need to invest in in technology we speaking about all these Technologies but some of these technolog that I speaking about they also tailor made for the farmers they just need also to partner with their local universities
then number three they also need to measure if you can’t measure then you you can’t manage yes if you can’t measure then you have got more drought affecting you what do I mean by measuring just buy a simple rage at your place just buy uh you know a simple even water level measuring device for your the stream that passes close to you to your community or to your uh to your farm nowadays we’ got what you call citizen science what is citizen science this is where together with the researchers the communities they also participate
just buy you know a farm rage how much it cost it should cost5 us you need to go to to have a Mas on it so that it can be mounted on a mask that’s only $6 and they’re able to have the records those records will help tell us the story about climate CH thank you wonderful thank you so much do if you cannot measure you cannot manage this has been beyond tomorrow and as usual we’ll be taking it to the field in the next Edition most likely will be visiting the University of Zimbabwe thank you and God.