Confronting the Adaptation Challenge in the World’s Largest Transboundary Conservation Area

The Kavango Zambezi (KAZA) Transfrontier Conservation Area (TFCA) is the world’s largest transboundary conservation area, encompassing parts of Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The KAZA TFCA was created to conserve shared natural and cultural resources, safeguard biodiversity, and support tourism. Additionally, it promotes sustainable development and economic resilience for over three million residents who rely on its natural resources. However, the park is now threatened by rapid economic growth and climate change.

Image

The KAZA TFCFA.

Photo Credit: Chemonics

To address the area’s climate risks, USAID’s Resilient Waters Program conducted a Livelihoods-focused Climate Risk Assessment to inform and stress test the KAZA TFCA’s Livelihood Diversification Strategy. Here is a summary of the assessment’s key findings and recommendations:

Findings

Drying Patterns

Prolonged dry periods threaten agriculture, which is vital for food security and income because rain is the primary method for irrigating crops. Extended droughts also lead to increased human-wildlife conflict as animals search for scarce water. Climate models predict more severe and prolonged dry seasons, which may endure weeks or even months longer than in the past depending on future warming rates.

Wildfires

Wildfire risk is increasing, with the fire season expected to lengthen from six to eight months. As fires occur under drier, hotter conditions, regrowth of woodlands becomes difficult, transforming forested areas into savannas. This shift affects communities dependent on forest resources. Fire management is particularly challenging in Zambia and Angola, where restrictions are less controlled.

Flooding

Seasonal floods are crucial for fishing, livestock, and recessional agriculture. However, proximity to waterways also brings risk, as seen in previous floods that displaced many of the KAZA TFCA’s communities and damaged infrastructure in 2003, 2009, and 2020. Using advanced hydro-climatic models coupled with high-resolution terrain models, the assessment shows expanded flood risk under future climate scenarios—affecting communities, tourist operations, and transportation infrastructure. This analysis is one of the first forward-looking flood analyses in the KAZA TFCA, mapping future inundation under different climate scenarios and flood levels. Alarmingly, extensive development has occurred in recent decades within the 1-in-100 year flood zone.

Image

Spatial extent of inundation under 1-in-10 (a), 1-in-100 (b), and 1-in-1000 (c) year flood events in 2020 (left column), moderate emissions scenario (RCP4.5) in 2050 (middle column), and high emissions scenario (RCP8.5) in 2050 (right column).

Photo Credit: Chemonics

Extreme Heat

Extreme heat will affect all aspects of life in the KAZA TFCA, including labor productivity, livestock health, fish preservation, and even tourism, as thermal comfort thresholds are increasingly surpassed. By mid-century, the frequency of extreme heat days could rise three- to four-fold, including during peak tourist season, which could make the KAZA TFCA less attractive for wildlife tourism.

Taken together, the assessment found that drying patterns will grow more pervasive, reduce the reliability of rainfed agriculture, and significantly limit the range and abundance of non-timber forest products. New wildfire and flood zones will directly affect key tourist-related infrastructure and strand livestock and farm assets, while extreme heat will affect seasonal tourism numbers as well as labor and livestock productivity.

Image

This impact chain shows the causal pathways connecting climate drivers to impacts in the tourist sector, informed by key stakeholder interviews.

Photo Credit: Chemonics

Recommendations: Adaptation Strategies and Actions

Many resource-dependent livelihoods can persist with proper diversification and adaptation measures through a mix of government action and donor programming. To safeguard residents, authorities can provide financial incentives, support insurance options, offer technical support, establish flood and wildfire zoning, and expand fire detection and management efforts. Meanwhile, the KAZA TFCA and its partners are uniquely positioned to invest in climate-adapted livelihoods, such as sustainable tourism, nature-based carbon projects, and non-timber forest products. Advancing these livelihoods requires significant adaptation financing and landscape-level planning. The assessment co-developed nearly forty adaptation actions with the KAZA TFCA Secretariat and its network that would bolster the livelihoods and resilience of the area’s residents.