{"id":6580,"date":"2019-11-15T08:38:15","date_gmt":"2019-11-15T05:38:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=6580"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:30:41","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:30:41","slug":"botswanas-okavango-delta-is-created-by-a-delicate-balance-but-for-how-much-longer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2019\/11\/15\/botswanas-okavango-delta-is-created-by-a-delicate-balance-but-for-how-much-longer\/","title":{"rendered":"Botswana\u2019s Okavango Delta Is Created By A Delicate Balance, But For How Much Longer?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>By Michael Murray-Hudson &amp; Olivier Dauteuil<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Okavango Delta in northern Botswana is a mosaic of water\npaths, floodplains and arid islands. The delta sits in the Okavango river\nbasin, which spans three African countries: Angola, Namibia and Botswana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Because it\u2019s an oasis, in a semi-arid area, it hosts a rich\narray of plants and attracts a huge variety of wildlife.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As a unique ecosystem, in 2014 it&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/whc.unesco.org\/en\/list\/1432\/\">was placed<\/a>&nbsp;on UNESCO\u2019s\nWorld Heritage list and it is an iconic tourist destination, which&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wttc.org\/about\/media-centre\/press-releases\/press-releases\/2019\/botswana-tourism-now-accounts-for-one-in-seven-of-all-dollars-in-the-economy\/\">generates<\/a>&nbsp;13%\nof Botswana\u2019s GDP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But it\u2019s a fragile natural area. It\u2019s controlled by\ndeformations of the Earth\u2019s crust over a long time (thousands to millions of\nyears) and by annual water flows and evaporation. The size of the flooded delta\nfrom year to year varies between 3,500km\u00b2 and 9,000km\u00b2 because of weather fluctuations\nwhich control its water supply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Any change to the processes that form the delta will have an\nimpact on the wildlife and local economic activities. Its grassy\nfloodplains&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/article\/10.1007\/s11273-015-9430-6\">are food<\/a>&nbsp;for\ngrazing animals in the dry period. Losses of this habitat will cause declines\nin wildlife and livestock. It\u2019s therefore imperative to understand what creates\nand sustains the delta for the future management of the system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/botswanas-okavango-delta-is-created-by-a-delicate-balance-but-for-how-much-longer-125323\">Read\nmore\u2026<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Michael Murray-Hudson &amp; Olivier Dauteuil The Okavango Delta in northern Botswana is a mosaic of water paths, floodplains and arid islands. The delta sits in the Okavango river basin,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6581,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6580\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}