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Projecting River Basin Resilience in the Zambezi River Basin through Global Analyses and Basin Realities

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Abstract

Projecting future hotspots of hydropolitical tension in international river basins may help countries in preventing hydropolitical conflict. The Zambezi River Basin has been identified as a basin at risk of future hydropolitical conflict. This paper analyzes the basin’s hydropolitical resilience using two approaches: i) a global analysis of factors that indicate change and institutional capacity, and ii) an in-depth examination of its hydropolitical history and present-day status using interviews with basin stakeholders, academics, NGOs, and policy makers. Results of the global analysis indicate that the Zambezi River Basin has comparatively higher institutional capacity, lower to medium rates of new dam development, lower human development and security values, lower water scarcity, yet higher projected water variability. Examining the basin’s hydropolitical history shows that these results are contextually dependent. This paper argues that while global hydropolitical resilience analyses are valid for indicating areas of possible tension over shared water resources, tracing basins’ hydropolitical history puts the global results into context that is crucial to identify specific aspects of the basin that may push the basin into conflict.

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Notes

  1. D.R.C. has a very small area within the Zambezi River Basin and does not participate in ZAMCOM or in any other Zambezi RBO.

  2. Botswana, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

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Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Jim Eynard for assistance in constructing the dam database. Thank you to everyone I interviewed, my Zambian interpreter, and Aaron Wolf, Michael Campana, Gregg Walker, Badege Bishaw, David Bernell, and my anonymous reviewers for providing valuable feedback.

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  1. Geography program, College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, Oregon State University, 104 Wilkinson Hall, Corvallis, OR, 97331, USA

    Jacob D. Petersen-Perlman

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Correspondence to Jacob D. Petersen-Perlman.

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Petersen-Perlman, J.D. Projecting River Basin Resilience in the Zambezi River Basin through Global Analyses and Basin Realities. Water Resour Manage 30, 1987–2003 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-016-1264-3

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