Climate Change Impact, Adaptation and Mitigation in Zimbabwe

The occurrence of climate change in Zimbabwe and the world over is no longer a debatable issue. Consequently, there is need to prepare communities in both urban and rural setups for resilience. It is particularly important to capacitate our smallholder farmers with knowledge and resources on how to adapt and mitigate climate change impacts in order to reduce food, nutrition and income insecurity, thereby alleviating poverty. Smallholder agriculture, a major driver of Zimbabwe’s economy, is primarily rain-fed throughout the country. Climate variability and change consequently place smallholder farmers who have less adaptive capacity in a precarious situation since they have to cope with recurrent droughts, mid-season dry spells, flooding, hailstorms and cyclones. Rural communities also depend on goods and services provided by our natural ecosystems, but unfortunately, these have not been spared from threats posed by climatic variability. This therefore implies that approximately 70% of Zimbabwe’s rural population is highly vulnerable to climate change. This reality calls for a shift in research thrusts towards generating innovative ideas that contribute to the building of resilience of smallholder farming communities. Since climate change is now inevitable, key research questions ought to address community preparedness, resilience, influence on policy, early detection and mitigation of natural disasters.

Climate change and variability also present a significant challenge for urban systems in Zimbabwe and the world over, and the effects are expected to intensify over the coming decade. Climate change impacts such as increased or reduced rainfall intensity, storm surges, flooding and urban heat island effects will severely affect urban systems, and the people and services they support. A major response challenge for cities such as Harare will be water scarcity as green infrastructure including wetlands, which form a vital part of the national water supply infrastructure and sequester greenhouse gases, continue to face human-linked degradation through conversion into agricultural units, construction, over-abstraction by boreholes and pollution. Adaptation will most certainly be required to cope with these effects. Urban planning thus has the potential to become a key factor in developing and implementing adaptive responses in urban environments. Plan-making, stakeholder engagement, development management and design standards are some of the tools with potential to develop, deliver and enhance urban adaptation across various scales.