Social vulnerabilities and adaptation options to climatic hazards affecting rural water supply in Barotse floodplain catchment.

Climate change is altering hydrological patterns, leading to extreme weather events such as prolonged droughts, intense floods, and shifts in precipitation patterns threatening water supply systems in the Barotse Floodplain. This has adversely affected the rural communities in the Barotse floodplain as water supply systems are crucial for their livelihoods and well-being. Therefore, this study sought to investigate the susceptibility of rural communities in the Barotse Floodplains to climatic hazards affecting their water supply and identify adaptation options for ensuring sustainable water supply in the face of climate change. The study adopted a mixed method approach with a convergent parallel mixed method research design and a sample size of 205 households and 6 key informants. To collect the data a household survey was conducted in Malengwa, Lealui and Nakanya villages in Mongu District using a semi-structured interview. The quantitative data was used to assess the social vulnerability of the rural communities using the social vulnerability index. Qualitative data was analyzed thematically. The findings of the study show that Nakanya village is the most vulnerable, having an SVI score of 0.52 followed by Lealui village with an SVI score of 0.45 and finally Malengwa village with an SVI score of 0.39. Economic factors largely influenced the social vulnerability in all
the three villages as they had the highest values. The findings also show that effects of climate change being experienced include an increase in the frequency of drought, increase in temperatures and lack of rainfall, floods, and heavy winds. The effects of climate change are negatively affecting the rural water supply of the Barotse floodplains in various ways with increase in frequency and severity of drought making water scarcer escalating water insecurity issues. This has led to adverse effects such as loss of crops, loss of livestock, drinking contaminated water, water shortages, hunger and starvation, diseases, reduced fishing activities and human wildlife conflict. The study found that rural communities were adapting to climate change impacts through measures such as digging and deepening wells, traveling longer distances to fetch water, limiting water usage, borehole drilling and construction of water supply mini schemes. The study identified adaptation options that can help enhance the local communities’ resilience against climate change impacts on water supply. These include drilling of boreholes, introduction of irrigation schemes, household clustering, recharge mapping and riverbank infiltration. The findings of the study reveal that development of climate change resilient water infrastructure is critical in enhancing the rural communities’ resilience against
the impacts of climate change on water supply systems.

Keywords: Barotse floodplains, Climate change, Rural water supply, Adaptation, Social vulnerability