Water Resources Strategies to Increase Food Production in the Semi-arid Tropics ― Unesco-ihe Phd Thesis

Water demand in southern Africa continues to rise, as urban areas expand and as agricultural water demand rises to meet the millennium development food security goals. Water resource availability in the northern Limpopo Basin has declined over the last 30 years, and will decline further under climate change. In this study, water resources modelling is used to quantify the effect of water resources strategies and climatic conditions on water resources availability. This is coupled with water balance modelling to evaluate the potential of alluvial aquifers, which form the beds of sand rivers.

The greatest benefit for the least impact comes from strategies providing for better land and soil/water management, such as changing from maize to small grains, production of livestock fodder and conservation agriculture. Small dams are a key resource to rural communities, and change to Multiple Use Systems through abstraction of water for irrigation has clear benefits locally. There is also great potential for the exploitation of alluvial aquifers for water supply. Better management of existing large dams, together with conjunctive use of alluvial groundwater and several reservoirs could increase productive use of water and significantly improve livelihoods without the construction of new reservoirs.

Born in 1975 in Lusaka, Zambia, David Love is a Senior Consultant with Golder Associates Africa’s Groundwater & Geochemistry Division. He holds a BSc from the University of Zimbabwe, a BSc Honours and MSc from the University of Stellenbosch and is a Fellow of the Water Institute of Southern Africa. David received the Tison award from the International Association of Hydrological Sciences in 2012 and the Phaup Award from the Geological Society of Zimbabwe in 2006 for work in his PhD thesis. David previously was manager of WaterNet, a SADC subsidiary institution, and served as the Chair of the Pan-African Steering Committee of the Partnership for Agricultural Water in Africa (AgWA) and a Visiting Scientist with ICRISAT. David is married to Faith, who is also a water and environmental scientist. They have two children, Kathleen Taboka and James Robert Langanani. David and Faith also farm cattle in southern Zimbabwe.