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The Changane River () is a river in
The people of the area have faced a lengthy civil war, and must also cope with drought and occasional devastating floods.
There is a small human population in the Banhine Park.
They have been damaging the environment by slash-and-burn cultivation of maize, sorghum, cassava and sugar cane. With drought, the crops fail and the people revert to hunting and fishing, placing stress on the fauna.
The government is encouraging people to move out of the park by building permanent water sources outside of the reserve and giving incentives to those who move.
The Chibuto District lies in the floodplain of the Changane River near Chibuto city.
In this part of the river basin average rainfall is around during the cold and dry season from April to September, and around in the hot and humid season from October to March.
The people are poor, with 50% below the poverty line.
They mainly live through subsistence agriculture, growing a mix of vegetables, banana, maize, and rice.
They also graze cattle and make use of local reeds and grass for fiber products.
The freshwater springs in the wetland are used for irrigation and domestic use.
Land use maps show that between 2001 and 2007 most of the shrubby marshlands in Chibuto have been gradually converted for use in agriculture in both the dry and wet seasons.
The cause may in part be exceptionally dry conditions during this period.
The local farmers also report an unsustainable growth in cattle on the land.
The reed collectors report that reed are being burned to clear the land for farming, which may have serious long-term impact on the environment.
A study undertaken between November 2006 and January 2007 found that the river water did not meet the
Mozambique
Mozambique (), officially the Republic of Mozambique ( pt, Moçambique or , ; ny, Mozambiki; sw, Msumbiji; ts, Muzambhiki), is a country located in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi ...
, a tributary to the Limpopo River
The Limpopo River rises in South Africa and flows generally eastward through Mozambique to the Indian Ocean. The term Limpopo is derived from Rivombo (Livombo/Lebombo), a group of Tsonga settlers led by Hosi Rivombo who settled in the mountain ...
which it joins near the coast, just past the town of Chibuto
Chibuto is a city located in the province of Gaza in Mozambique, about 200 km north of the capital, Maputo
Maputo (), formerly named Lourenço Marques until 1976, is the capital, and largest city of Mozambique. Located near the southern ...
. It forms part of the eastern boundary of Gaza Province. The Changane is the easternmost tributary of the Limpopo, entering it from the left near its mouth on the Indian Ocean
The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by t ...
Geography
The Changane and its main tributaries rise close to the border with Zimbabwe. The river runs southwards roughly along the 34°E line of longitude from about 22°S to about 24°S latitude. The river drains the wetlands of Banhine National Park. The basin covers , or about 15.9% of the Limpopo Basin. The river mainly flows through a dry region. In the interior, annual rainfall is as low as , rising to near the coast. The Changane River Valley is near sea level, and was once a beach line. The Changane has a very low runoff coefficient and long periods with no discharge at all.Ecology
The Changane Valley holds scattered saline wetlands and seasonally flooded grasslands with islands of ''Acacia nilotica kraussiana''. It is usually semi-arid, but in the late 1990s rainfall increased dramatically, causing widespread and devastating flooding. of rain fell in only 3 days in March 2000. The more frequently flooded areas have higher salinity. They are dominated by salt-tolerant grasslands with extensive bare patches. 18 species of fish have been found in the Banhine National Park towards the north of the valley. TheAfrican lungfish
''Protopterus'' is the genus of four species of lungfish found in Africa. ''Protopterus'' was formerly thought to be the sole genus in the family Protopteridae, but more recent studies have classified it with ''Lepidosiren'' in the family Lepi ...
, two killifish
A killifish is any of various oviparous (egg-laying) cyprinodontiform fish (including families Aplocheilidae, Cyprinodontidae, Fundulidae, Profundulidae and Valenciidae). All together, there are 1,270 species of killifish, the biggest family ...
species and two Barbel Barbel may refer to:
*Barbel (anatomy), a whisker-like organ near the mouth found in some fish (notably catfish, loaches and cyprinids) and turtles
*Barbel (fish), a common name for certain species of fish
**''Barbus barbus'', a species of cyprinid ...
species have developed ways to deal with drought, since the wetlands are sometimes completely dry on the surface.
The Banhine National Park used to be home to buffalo, sable, tsetsebe, hartebeest, zebra, and wildebeest.
Many of these animals were destroyed during the civil wars of the 1980s and early 1990s.
However, the park is still home to endangered wattled crane
The wattled crane (''Grus carunculata'') is a large bird found in Africa, south of the Sahara Desert. It is sometimes placed in the monotypic genus ''Bugeranus''.
Taxonomy
The first formal description of the wattled crane was by the German nat ...
s and to many migratory birds.
Results of an aerial survey in October 2004 showed that the park had healthy populations of ostrich, kudu, impala, reedbuck, duiker, steenbok, porcupine, warthog and oribi
The oribi (; ''Ourebia ourebi'') is a small antelope found in eastern, southern and western Africa. The sole member of its genus, it was described by the German zoologist Eberhard August Wilhelm von Zimmermann in 1783. While this is the only ...
.
Human activity
The people of the area have faced a lengthy civil war, and must also cope with drought and occasional devastating floods.
There is a small human population in the Banhine Park.
They have been damaging the environment by slash-and-burn cultivation of maize, sorghum, cassava and sugar cane. With drought, the crops fail and the people revert to hunting and fishing, placing stress on the fauna.
The government is encouraging people to move out of the park by building permanent water sources outside of the reserve and giving incentives to those who move.
The Chibuto District lies in the floodplain of the Changane River near Chibuto city.
In this part of the river basin average rainfall is around during the cold and dry season from April to September, and around in the hot and humid season from October to March.
The people are poor, with 50% below the poverty line.
They mainly live through subsistence agriculture, growing a mix of vegetables, banana, maize, and rice.
They also graze cattle and make use of local reeds and grass for fiber products.
The freshwater springs in the wetland are used for irrigation and domestic use.
Land use maps show that between 2001 and 2007 most of the shrubby marshlands in Chibuto have been gradually converted for use in agriculture in both the dry and wet seasons.
The cause may in part be exceptionally dry conditions during this period.
The local farmers also report an unsustainable growth in cattle on the land.
The reed collectors report that reed are being burned to clear the land for farming, which may have serious long-term impact on the environment.
A study undertaken between November 2006 and January 2007 found that the river water did not meet the World Health Organization
The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. The WHO Constitution states its main objective as "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of ...
guidelines for drinking water quality. This may have been due in part to the effects of the wetlands that feed the river and to the natural occurrence of a river bed rich in ions due to natural geology of the area.
However, contamination with coliforms (highest around Chibuto town) was clearly due to urban waste.
References
{{reflist , refs= {{cite web , url=http://www.bscw.ihe.nl/pub/bscw.cgi/d2606993/Chilundo.pdf , title=Design of a Water Quality Monitoring Network for the Limpopo River Basin in Mozambique , author1=M. Chilundo , author2=P. Kelderman , author3=J. H. O´Keeffe , accessdate=2011-10-16 , url-status=dead , archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120425071443/http://www.bscw.ihe.nl/pub/bscw.cgi/d2606993/Chilundo.pdf , archivedate=2012-04-25 {{cite web , url=http://www.krugerpark.co.za/krugerpark-times-3-19-banhine-23758.html , title=Banhine In The Grip Of Drought , publisher=Siyabona Africa , accessdate=2011-10-16 {{cite web , url=http://www.worldfishcenter.org/resource_centre/WF_2106.pdf , title=Seasonality dynamics for investigating wetland-agriculture nexus and its ecosystems service values in Chibuto, Mozambique , author1=Nidhi Nagabhatla , author2=Francisco Saimone , author3=Dinis Juízo , author4=Mutsa Masiyandima , publisher=WorldFish Center , accessdate=2011-10-16 {{WWF ecoregion , id=at0908 , name=Zambezian halophytics , accessdate=2011-10-16 Rivers of Mozambique Tributaries of the Limpopo River