Abstract
Information from 117 questionnaires and focus groups in four villages in the Okavango Delta, Botswana was used to identify households exposed to different levels of risk in order to relate them to various livelihood activities and coping strategies. Current household strategies such as migration and diversification that are used to cope with recurring hazards such as drought, reduced flooding and animal disease are becoming more limited because of fencing policies and changed flooding regimes. In the light of future challenges such as climate change and increased upstream water abstractions, the heavy reliance on government assistance will probably increase especially among female-headed households and high-risk households. Without targeted initiatives based on spatial and social distributions of risk, then the dependency syndrome of Botswana is likely to continue and be exacerbated.
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Notes
Defined as average annual rainfall minus one standard deviation.
Drought conditions occurred at Maun, the regional capital of Ngamiland district in which the Delta is situated (see Fig. 1) for two years in 1922–1959 and eleven years in 1960–2004.
1 USD was approximately equal to 4.5 Pula during the fieldwork period.
* Correlation at 05 level of significance; ** correlation at 0.01 level of significance.
Calculated from the Botswana Meteorological Office records for 1922–2005.
Standard deviation divided by the average.
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Acknowledgements
This study was performed within the EU-funded project Water and Ecosystem Resources in Regional Development––Balancing Needs and Wants and Natural System Sustainability in International River Basins. We thank Piers Blaikie for his comments on earlier drafts of this paper.
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Wilk, J., Kgathi, D. Risk in the Okavango Delta in the face of social and environmental change. GeoJournal 70, 121–132 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-008-9119-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-008-9119-y