Barotse Floodplain - Natural Environment

Natural Environment

The floodplain is in the Zambezian flooded grasslands ecoregion, and is bordered by slightly higher sandy ground on which grow dry grasslands (Western Zambezian grasslands) with woodland savanna (Zambezian Baikiaea woodlands) to the east and south, and patches of evergreen forest (Cryptosepalum dry forests) in the north and east.

The flood provides aquatic habitats for fish such as tigerfish and bream, crocodiles, hippopotamus, waterbirds, fish-eating birds, and lechwe, the wading antelope. After the flood, the plain is a habitat for grazing animals such as wildebeest, zebra, tsessebe and small antelope such oribi and steenbok, and their predators. These herbivores have been displaced in most areas by the cattle grazed by the Lozi, but they have provided a large game reserve on the dry grassland to the west, the Liuwa Plain National Park, once the Litunga's hunting grounds, established as a game reserve by Lewanika in the 19th century. In addition the entire western of the Zambezi within the country is a Game Management Area.

Read more about this topic:  Barotse Floodplain

Famous quotes containing the words natural and/or environment:

    Unto a life which I call natural I would gladly follow even a will-o’-the-wisp through bogs and sloughs unimaginable, but no moon nor firefly has shown me the causeway to it.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    Modern man’s capacity for destruction is quixotic evidence of humanity’s capacity for reconstruction. The powerful technological agents we have unleashed against the environment include many of the agents we require for its reconstruction.
    George F. Will (b. 1941)