Sold Up The River?

An interesting piece on hydro power proposals on the Okavango discusses the tradeoffs between domestic and developmental needs and the needs for conserving the rich soon to be UNESCO World Heritage Site that is Botswana's Okavango Delta.

A proposed large scale hydro-electric weir at Popa Falls on the Okavango River. This comes from Namibia's desperate need to develop self sufficient power generation infrastructure, such that they no longer need to import over 50% of their energy from South Africa. As population is fastly growing and there have been some signs of development in the region, demand is increasingly outstripping supply and widespread outages and infrastructural limitations are hampering potential economic growth. Namibia has been exploring this possiblity since 1969, however thanks to public outcry and frequent stakeholder meetings this project has been indefinitely delayed.

The article outlines numerous impacts that could result from implementation of the weir such as

- signficant reductions in water flow and natural variability

- interuption of sediment flow downstream

- migrational routes of elephants and fish disturbed

- inundation of houses, schools, riverine forest leading to loss of habitat and destablising communities

- inundation leading to increased prevalence of malaria and bilharzia

Though alarmist, as the project will unlikely get moving any time soon. It does emphasise the difficulty of a trade off between economic growth needs and preserving ecologically important areas. Written from the perspective of an ecologist, it does make very ambitious and unrealistic claims such as "we need to limit water abstraction to household demand throughout the Kavango Basin." The fact that NamPower with the oversight of OKACOM first produced a feasibility study then invited stakeholder participation in debating matters shows the effectiveness of the Integrated Water Resource Management that occurs in this basin. This project is unlikely to ever occur should the current successful implementation of IWRM continue.