botswana/namibia - Cour international de Justice

cruise boats from the Safari Lodges can only go around the northern and western channels as
the southern channel is too shallow and does not rejoin the western channel at all.
408. The sub-channel is visible with residual water lying in it in the centre of the Island
confirming that its bed is at a lower elevation than the surrounding ground. As in the 1943
photograph, the surface texture south of this sub-channel shows no difference to the texture to
the north of it.
The June/July 1962 Photograph (Scale 1:10,000 approximately). Average mean flow 1746
m3 (1961); 2122 m3 (1962). Reproduced with labels at page 169.
409. This is a very poor photograph with bad granularity giving poor contrast and poor
resolution, particularly in the bifurcation marked B. The shiny effect on the southern end of
the Spur channel is caused by reflected sunlight due to the angle of the sun at exposure.
410. Although this photograph was taken fifteen years after the 1947 photograph, the images
on both are virtually indistinguishable, with the northern channel clearly visible as wider than
the southern. Although this photograph was taken only four years after the great flood in 1958
(hydrological year beginning October 1957, average mean flow - 2328 cubic metres) being
the peak of the floods, which inundated the island for two years, this has had no effect on the
characteristics of the Island. Were the southern channel the main channel, it would be
reasonable to expect that changes would have occurred by erosion and deposition along its
sinuous shape but this has not occurred.
The May 1972 Photograph (Scale 1:10,000 approx.) Average mean flow 839 m3. (1971);
640 m3 (1972). Reproduced with labels at page 173.
411. This photograph, and that taken in November of the same year, are highly significant,
providing an invaluable contrast between the island at low water and at a time when the
Zambezi is in flood. In the May 1972 photograph, the southern channel is dry for half its
length from the bifurcation zone marked B to a point north of the Chobe National Park
Headquarters. A long isolated pool immediately adjacent to the Headquarters appears on the
photograph and is entirely consistent with the findings of the Joint Survey of 1985. (Depths
Recorded in the 1985 Joint Survey; Sefe, Second Opinion, Table 4). The Court is respectfully
referred to this Table and the Figure 2 in Professor Sefe's First Opinion, Botswana Memorial,
App. to Chapter VII, which illustrates this point. This shows a shallow sounding at crosssection
14 of 3.4 metres followed by two deeper soundings of 4.2 metres at cross-sections 15
and of 5.7 metres at cross-section 16. The next cross-section at 17 shows that the water
decreases in depth to 3.0 metres, thus as the water levels drop, a pool as shown on this
photograph would be left between cross-sections 15 and 17. Thus, this first photograph, taken
at a time when water levels were low, certainly supports Namibia's statement that the southern
channel is a stagnant pool (Namibian Memorial, p.22, para.66).
412. However, this May 1972 photograph entirely disproves the Namibian Memorial's
contention that the northern channel is also a stagnant pool except in time of flood. (Namibian
Memorial, p.22, para.66). The western and northern sectors of the northern channel, although
lower than in the other photographs, are still open and flowing, proving that these channels
must be deeper and are indeed the main channel of the Chobe River clearly navigable even at
low water9.