Editorial- Analysis of Climate Change Impacts on Water Resources For Developing Economies: Successes and Challenges

Lake Malawi was the subject of the work by Kumanbala and Ervine. The lake is the most strategic in Malawi by serving various purposes including hydropower generation, water supply for industrial and domestic use in the city of Blantyre and its surrounding urban areas, together with irrigation water in the Lower Shire Valley (LSV). Consequently, any changes in the hydrological or ecological behaviour of the lake will have far reaching consequences for the economy of Malawi. It is therefore no wonder that the lake has been intensively studied in the past but the main contribution of the current authors was to incorporate climate change modelling into the existing water balance model, so as to enable objective and more comprehensive assessment of the likely future behaviour of the lake. The results showed that water level in the lake will continue to drop because of decreasing rainfall and increasing evaporation. This situation calls for an urgent need to develop viable alternatives for both hydropower and irrigation development, since the current over-reliance on the lake’s water may not be sustainable for the future.