OVERVIEW OF THE IMPACT OF MINING ON THE ... - IIED pubs

4. THE LIMPOPO BASIN
In order to provide a suitable background for subsequent descriptions of the impacts of mining on water
resources in the Limpopo basin, this section starts with a brief overview of the catchment characteristics. This is
then followed by condensed descriptions of the information relating to mining activities and their impacts in each
sub-catchment.
The Olifants basin is actually a sub-catchment of the Limpopo basin but has been treated separately in this
report (see Section 5). As a result, the figures used in this report for the catchment area, runoff, and population
of the Limpopo basin exclude the relevant details for the Olifants basin.
4.1 Introduction
The Limpopo River is one of the most important rivers in southern Africa and its basin comprises portions of four
SADC states (Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe; Table 4.1; Figure 1.1). The basin is
located between 19.5 ° and 26.5 ° South latitude and between 25.5 ° and 34.5 ° East longitude, with a total
basin area of approximately 282,000 km 2 , comprising roughly 9% of the total area of the four basin states. The
area contributed to the basin by each state varies between 7.4% (Mozambique) and 12.8% (Botswana; Table
4.1).
Table 4.1: Area statistics for the four SADC states comprising the Limpopo basin (excluding the Olifants subbasin,
which is dealt with in Section 5). [Data obtained from Midgley et al. (1995), SARDC (1996) and Boroto &
Görgens (1999)].
Country
Total Area of
Country (km 2 )
Country Area
in Basin (km 2 )
ccix
Proportion of
Country Area (%)
Proportion of
Basin Area (%)
Botswana 600,370 70,000 11.7 24.8
South Africa 1,219,912 102,900 8.4 36.5
Mozambique 801,590 59,000 7.4 20.9
Zimbabwe 390,759 49,900 12.8 17.8
Totals: 3,012,631 281,800 9.4 100.0
The Limpopo River has a relatively dense network of tributary streams and rivers, though most of these
tributaries only have either seasonal or episodic flows. In historical times, the Limpopo River was considered to
be a strong-flowing perennial river but is now regarded as a weakly perennial river where flows frequently cease
and, during drought periods, no surface water is present over large stretches of the middle and lower reaches of
the river.