Dependence of large mammals in sub-Saharan Africa on water and water management: a literature review

Water is essential for life: for plants, for wildlife, for humans. Unfortunately water of good quality is in even greater demand, largely because of increasing human activities. In large parts of the world this demand is expected to continuing growing over the coming decades, as human populations and development continue to increase. At the same time it is predicted that water availability will decrease in large parts of the world because of climate change.

WWF – The Netherlands is concerned that, without appropriate integrated water management, wildlife in particular will suffer from the combination of reduced rainfall, increased water demand for human purposes, and decreased access to freshwater because of increased presence of livestock and people. It has therefore commissioned this review of the scientific literature on “Dependence of large mammals in sub-Saharan Africa on water and water management”, in which particular attention is given to seven species: elephant (Loxodonta africana), hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius), buffalo (Syncerus caffer), black rhinoceros Diceros bicornis, white rhinoceros Ceratotherium simum, lion (Panthera leo), and leopard (Panthera pardus).. These species have been selected because they fullfill one or more of the following criteria:

• they are a keystone species in the ecosystems where they occur;
• they are in danger of becoming extinct
• they are of economic value for the tourist industry
• they are a terrestrial species for which negative effects of inappropriate water management may be less evident.

The review has been carried out by the Resource Ecology Group of Wageningen University and ITC – the International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation based in Enschede, The Netherlands, with assistance from two outside consultants. A near-final draft of the report was commented on by three outside referees, experts in the field of large African mammals, water management. The review is to be followed by a computer modelling study of likely effects of climate change on the distribution of these same species plus several floodplain antelopes.

For this review a number of databases of double-refereed scientific journal articles were searched, using relevant keywords. A resulting selection of 3101 articles was investigated further. Important textbooks were consulted as well. In total 155 references were included in this review, in which we found that there is not much quantitative and peer-reviewed information available about water dependence of the larger species of African wild mammals. Even less information is available about the effects of water management on larger species of African wild mammals. In this study water management is taken to include willful and as well as incidental effects of human actions on water quantity and quality. Also included are human effects on the
seasonal availability of water.

In addition to the literature review cse studies are included of water management effects on wildlife from the Waza-Logone area in semi-arid northern Cameroon; from the catchment of the Zambezi River in southern Africa, around the Kariba Dam and on the Kafue flats; and from the Serengeti Plains ecosystem in Tanzania.

In addition a list is included of 103 larger mammal species whose occurrence in Africa is frequently associated with the presence of surface water.