Water rights and water availability in the Lower Odzi watershed of the Save catchment

Abstract

The water law reform begun In 1998 in Zimbabwe reopens many issues about the analysis of availability of water resources for agriculture as well as issues about which farmers will gain and keep rights to use the water. There has been little recent analysis in Zimbabwe of the scale of possible change in hydrology, or the scale and pattern of water use. The understanding of Zimbabwean rivers is still drawing on data information networks developed in the 1960s. without reference to any population, land use and climatic changes that may be affecting water flows. Current calculation methods for the analysis of surface water supply at catchment and sub-catchment level pay little attention to the quantity and variability of flow s in individual stream s, although the reliability o f water entitlements for small-scale irrigators depends on this. Upstream and downstream users are differentially affected by this variability especially at times of low flow. There are also important social dimensions in the registration of access to land and water that will affect the re-negotiation of water rights. Both new organisations to manage water resources, and new formulation of water rights proposed in new legislation, may be strained by these hydrological and social realities.