The challenge of water scarcity as a result of insufficient seasonal rainfall and dry spell occurrences during cropping seasons is compounded by inefficient agricultural practices by smallholder farmers where insignificant soil and water conservation efforts are applied. The hypothesis of this research is that many of the past research efforts have taken a fragmented approach to deal with the challenges facing subsistence farmers in rainfed systems. The research has been conducted in the semi-arid Makanya catchment of northern Tanzania and has successfully applied different analytical...

The Middle Zambezi Valley has undergone profound hydrological and social changes over the past century for which limited pre-impact studies are available. Floods and droughts have become more frequent in recent years and the poor living in this area are the most vulnerable when either event strikes. The question that comes about is whether the occurence of these extreme hydrological events is a natural cause or human induced as hydrological processes of this area are largely influenced by reservoir operations in the two instream Lakes; Kariba and Cahora Bassa. This book, therefore, sought to...