News

• About SIMDAS: From Project To Regional Flagship Programme

• Soil-Water Management Project at University of Botswana's Okavango Research Centre

• SIMDAS Progress Report: October 2003 - October 2005

• Profile: Harry Oppenheimer Okavango Research Centre

• The Kalahari Transect Project: root mapping in savannah ecosystems

HOORC Library Resources

• New books for planning

• Identifying snakes

• Economics of Water Resources

The SIMDAS flagship programme aims at addressing water interactions, ecosystem protection and management, energy resources and health issues in the 14 countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region.  Implemented by UNESCO Harare Cluster office within the Natural Sciences sector, it brings together the International Hydrological (IHP) and the Man and Biosphere (MAB) programmes.

In Focus: The Headstreams Project

“Towards long term sustainable ecosystem management in the headstreams of arid/semi arid southern Africa"

The HARRY OPPENHEIMER OKAVANGO RESEARCH CENTRE (HOORC) Headstreams project was initiated in 2003 with funding from the SIMDAS programme under UNESCO.

Its objective is to quantify past and present development of land-cover ecosystem trends (including land-water interactions) in southern African headstreams in order to facilitate international (trans boundary) decision making pertaining to long term sustainable management and poverty alleviation.

As one of the first projects under SIMDAS, it has a duration of five years and three students have already started work on headstreams of the Malagarsi-Muyovzi river system draining into Lake Tanganyika in Tanzania, the upper Zambezi headstreams in Zambia and headstreams of the Save river in Zimbabwe.

More information is available on the HOORC information site or by contacting Sue Ringrose at sringrose@orc.ub.bw.