Living with floods – household perception and satellite observations in the Barotse Floodplain, Zambia

Publication date: Available online 11 November 2016 Source:Physics and Chemistry of the Earth, Parts A/B/C Author(s): Xueliang Cai, Alemseged Haile, James Magidi, Everisto Mapedza, Luxon Nhamo The Barotse Floodplain, a designated Ramsar site, is home to thousands of indigenous people along with an extensive wetland ecosystem and food production system. Increasingly it is also a popular tourist destination with its annual Kuomboka festival which celebrates the relocation of the king and the Lozi people to higher ground before the onset of the flood season. This paper presents an integrated approach which cross validates and combines the floodplain residents’ perceptions about recent floods with information on flood inundation levels derived from satellite observations. Local residents’ surveys were conducted to assess farmers’ perception on the flooding patterns and the impact on their livelihoods. Further, a series of flood inundation maps from 1989 to 2014 generated from remotely sensed Landsat imagery were used to assess the recent patterns of floods. Results show that the floodplain has a population of 33 thousand living in 10849 small permeant or temporary buildings with a total cropland area of 4976 ha. The floodplain hydrology and flooding patterns have changed, confirmed by both surveys and satellite image analysis, due to catchment development and changing climate. The average annual inundated areas have increased from about 316 thousand ha in 1989-1998 t...

Source: Physics and Chemistry of the Earth, Parts ABC - November 11, 2016 Category: Science Source Type: research