Last month, Chama and I went on a field trip to the Copperbelt Province in northern Zambia. As the name suggests, this is an area with intensive mining activity. Mining brings important economic benefits to the country, but it can also put significant pressure on the surrounding environment, particularly on water quality. This is one of the main concerns addressed by MWAZACO, a project aimed at mapping water quality across the province and developing a pilot wastewater treatment plant to help treat heavily polluted mine waters.

 

Together with two students from Copperbelt University, Chibwe and Harrison, we travelled around the province to better understand the current state of the river systems and the surrounding environment. Chama joined the fieldwork from a socio-economic perspective, interviewing farmers about their experiences and how conditions in the area have changed over time. My focus was on the ecological health of these areas, particularly the diversity and condition of the surrounding vegetation.

 

My work involved assessing different stretches of wetlands located close to mining areas and looking at several indicators of ecological health. For example, we observed whether the vegetation was stratified, meaning that there were different layers such as ground vegetation, bushes, and trees. This kind of structure can indicate a more diverse, stable, and resilient ecosystem. We also looked at whether the ground was consistently covered by vegetation and how diverse the plant communities were. Rather than seeing only one dominant type of grass, for example, a healthier wetland would normally contain a wider variety of grasses, flowering plants, vines, shrubs, and other vegetation.

 

The results in many of the areas we visited were quite striking. We encountered abandoned land, damaged crops, and wetlands where the vegetation appeared to be strongly degraded. In several locations, large areas were dominated by a single type of grass, even though wetlands are normally expected to support a much richer diversity of plants, insects, and other organisms.

 

This loss of ecological diversity is important because healthy vegetation provides several ecological services. It can help protect the soil from erosion, reduce the movement of pollutants through the landscape, and act as a natural buffer between contaminated areas and surrounding water systems. When these functions are weakened, there is a greater risk that contaminants can move into rivers, agricultural land, and potentially into sources of drinking water and food.

 

There is still a lot of work needed to support a more sustainable mining sector in the Copperbelt Province. We hope that our work, together with the wider activities of MWAZACO, can help demonstrate the extent of these environmental challenges and contribute to finding solutions that can lead to meaningful change.