The headstreams project focuses on long term ecosystem sustainable management (involving landuse-landcover (LULC) change and-water interactions) in selected upper catchment areas in all the SADC countries. Following a broad Landsat satellite analyses of change, field work and monitoring is envisaged in specific catchment area. As the 14 SADC states are all involved, this work becomes multi-partner and interdisciplinary in nature and while maintaining an overall strategy for water and land-use assessments in the upper catchment areas, we are also cognizant of national priorities.

The reason for choosing headstreams is that lack of proper management in the upper catchments is causing serious problems in often more populated downstream areas. Management problems are exacerbated when the downstream section lies in a different country. Various international agreements or groupings, such as OKACOM for the Okavango basin try to effect basin management with varying degrees of success. In fact many natural resource management or sustainability problems stem from the lack of relevant data in a useable form in the various basin states.

Much headway can be gained by integrating hydrological-soil and land-use data in the various upper catchments and by making this (comparable) data available to all affected member states. It is envisaged that the results of headstream LULC and allied monitoring activities be relayed to the downstream states with a view to recommending proper management practices.

Significant elements of the existing projects looking into human impacts in downstream areas of such basins as the Okavango, lower Zambezi, Limpopo and the Rift Valley lakes will be integrated into the present work. However the overarching need at the present time is to provide more landuse-landcover change data in the headstreams, as without proper management in these areas, the downstream portions may face severe difficulties.

The project therefore will undertake land-use /landcover (LULC) change and include a dimension of hydrological and soil data collection as a basis for monitoring sediment inputs in the significant upper catchments which feed major rivers in all the SADC countries. Extended areas which will serve as foci for the proposed work have been identified. In these upper catchments, accelerated LULC changes are threatening to undermine not only the quality and quantity of river water but are also reducing the natural resource bases for human livelihood through erosion and ecological deterioration.