Okavango Delta Management Plan - Ramsar Convention on Wetlands

photography, birding, sightseeing etc) and aesthetics. The standard should also
protect the <strong>Delta</strong>’s functions (e.g. groundwater recharge) and values.
In developing any standards, a committee of experts and stakeholders is usually
set up by the appropriate authority. It is recommended that the same process be
followed for the water standard of the <strong>Okavango</strong> <strong>Delta</strong>, because all the issues
raised above will have to be taken into account, including natural fluctuations in
the <strong>Delta</strong>’s water quality and quantity due to seasons and flooding.
It is also necessary to determine which water quality parameters need to be
incorporated into the standard. The priority for the <strong>Okavango</strong> <strong>Delta</strong> is the collection
of spatial and temporal baseline data once the parameters have been identified.
5.1.5 MAINTAINANCE AND RESTORATION OF THE OKAVANGO DELTA
RAMSAR SITE HABITATS AND ECOSYSTEM.
The strategy for the maintenance and restoration of the ODRS focuses on factors
which are detrimental to the health and existence of the site’s habitats and
ecosystem. These may be natural or anthropogenic.
The natural factors include climatic change and natural fires. In order to deal with
these factors, coping strategies should be put in place. The anthropogenic factors
include eutrophication, decreased inflows by water abstraction and veld fires, just
to name a few. Sectoral manangement plans and regulatory frameworks should be
implemented and enforcement improved.
5.1.5.1 Eutrophication
The <strong>Okavango</strong> <strong>Delta</strong> is a nutrient poor system. Therefore an increase in nutrient
levels will lead to eutrophication, which in turn may result in large-scale vegetation
changes. For example eutrophication may lead to the disappearance of the papyrus
which is a keystone species regulating the hydrological functioning of the nutrient
poor <strong>Okavango</strong> system with the resultant invasion of opportunistic species such as
water hyacinth (Gumbricht and McCarthy, 2002).
Eutrophication may be induced by pollution from waste and raw sewerage being
discharged into the system as well as the use of fertilizers within the <strong>Okavango</strong>
<strong>Delta</strong> system. Therefore such activities should be discouraged and preferably
prohibited through implementation of, among others, waste management
strategies, and arable and livestock management programmes.
5.1.5.2 Decrease water and sediment inflows
The hydrological modelling has shown the basin and the <strong>Delta</strong> are in near natural
state in the sense that present land use changes and abstractions from the basin
upstream and locally in the <strong>Delta</strong> have a minimal impact on the <strong>Delta</strong> as a whole
though local impacts may be significant (ODMP – Analysis of Water Resources
Scenarios, 2006). However the modelling further indicates that upstream irrigation
in Namibia and especially in Angola has a significant potential impact which would
manifests itself in a 40% reduction of the permanently flooded area of the <strong>Delta</strong>.
This would also result in the reduction of sediment flow into the <strong>Delta</strong>.
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