Occurring when crops have been heavily scorched by El Nino-induced dry spells, the flooding in Lake Malawi and Shire River is as startling as it is ominous.
The situation on the shores of Lake Malawi and the banks of the uppermost stretch of Shire River is dire.
Rising waters have even inundated locations which are several yards from the typical edges of the two water bodies.
“I don’t know what to do. My house, my whole home is in water,” Rachel Phinda in Mangochi says. Her imposing house is at a distance of the length of a football pitch away from the river.
This means it might be outside the zone within which development activities are proscribed in line with the Water Resources Act.
But the house is still in the giant watercourse’s floodplain, thus within a range where the risk of swamping is alive.
According to the law, no development activities are allowed within a minimum of 15 metres from the highest ever or a 100-year flood level on either side of a river.
Still Phinda is among thousands of people who are pushing the National Water Resources Authority (NWRA) to open the 14 gates of Kamuzu Barrage at Liwonde.
The affected people accuse NWRA of deliberately creating the floods in Mangochi and other districts by releasing “minimal quantities” of water at the barrage.
“We want the flow of water to increase; they should release above 15 centimetres [cm] and not the current 10cm,” Wellington Mangulenje, a representative of the people in Mangochi, said during a recent media briefing.
It is unclear whether his figures are from an informed point of view.
But NWRA insists that the barrage, which was first commissioned in 1965 before an upgraded version became operational in 2019, is functioning within its mandate.
Its computer-generated operating model determines when the gates can be opened.
“The objective of the hydrological model is forecasting the water availability at the barrage for the next 12 months and simulating the lake level and flows downstream for 12 months ahead,” NWRA Chief Executive Officer Dwight Kambuku says.
Kambuku explains that the results of the forecasting provide a basis for choosing the release strategy at the structure.
“The application of the strategies is also dependent on other socio-economic factors along the Lake Malawi-Shire River Hydrological system,” he says.
According to the Water Resources law, it is illegal to carry out any activity below the 477 metres above sea level (masl) contour line along Lake Malawi to stay clear of flooding.
With the water levels having already risen to 494.97 masl in recent weeks—the highest in 12 years—buildings and crop fields below 477 masl have been affected.
Kambuku recently disclosed that NWRA was releasing 934 cubic metres per second of water at the barrage against the downstream maximum demand of 350 cubic metres per second to “significantly reduce” volumes in the lake.
The 934 cubic metres per second also surpass the Shire’s capacity of a maximum of 800 metres per second.
“If the gates can be fully opened, an estimated flow of 4,200 cubic metres per second will go into the river.
“That would damage hydropower plants due to high water pressure from a single channel without any energy dissipaters along the way,” Kambuku says.
He adds that the Shire Valley would be exposed to massive flooding apart from water in the lake going down to levels which might eventually be too low to sustain socioeconomic activities downstream.
So, in the meantime, the authority finds itself caught up in a catch-22 scenario.
“We have to balance up the options. It would be illogical to completely transfer a problem from upstream the barrage to downstream areas,” Kambuku says.
He further discloses that already, after the beyond-capacity opening of the barrage to ease the pressure in upstream zones, the impacts have been felt on sections of the river down the gates.
A gauge station and a water abstraction and pump house for Southern Region Water Board in Liwonde got submerged in water that overwhelmed the Shire.
“Moving forward, we will be working with other government departments and agencies to ensure no activities take place in areas prone to flooding.
“In fact, it is not flooding per se, but the lake and the river simply reclaiming their spaces,” Kambuku says.
In a recent interview with The Daily Times, NWRA spokesperson Masozi Kasambara attributed the rise in water levels in Lake Malawi to improved management of the lake and the Shire.
Rains which only just fell in some parts of the Central and Northern regions and more water flowing from Tanzania than was previously the case have also triggered the rise.
Ironically, parts of the Southern and Central regions have experienced damaging dry spells in recent weeks, which have left crop fields with nothing for farmers to harvest.
During last week’s engagement with NWRA, members of the Public Affairs Committee (Pac) indicated that they had come to understand the truth about the “flooding” in the lake.
“The scientific explanations make a lot of sense. It is about balancing options, otherwise one action, according to what they have said, might be disastrous if not properly executed,” Pac Chairperson Patrick Thawale said.
But for Phinda and Mangulenje, no explanation might be persuasive enough at the moment.
Their houses and lives are in water, and in their situation, a push for the squelchy problem to be pushed elsewhere probably makes sense.
