Luangwa Vegetation

Compendium Of Early Publications on Vegetation Ecology

The Luangwa river is a major tributary of the Zambezi river flowing   south-west from  its  sources  at an  altitude  of around   2133m to its confluence  with  the Zambezi at 335m. In its middle reaches it flows through a flat-bottomed trough bounded by steep, deeply dissected escarpments that rise to 700-800 m above its floor. The South Luangwa National Park which is 9,050 km², mostly on the western side of the Luangwa river. There are no settlements or cultivation within the Park. In recent times tourist camps have increased along the river banks. Outside the Park, crops include maize, sorghum, soya-beans, pigeon pea, groundnuts, finger millet, mango, and cotton.

The landscape of the Park includes all the major vegetation types of the Central African Valleys including extensive, spectacular escarpments (see illustration below). Its vegetation is similar to that found in the Zambezi valleys below Mosi-oa-Tunya (Victoria) Falls, the Cunene River in Angola and Namibia, the Limpopo in Zimbabwe and South Africa, and the Shire in Malawi and Mozambique. There are large areas of similar vegetation in the controlled hunting in Game Management Areas on the eastern side of the Luangwa.

  • The sand bars in the foreground form the banks of the river with tall, riparian woodland on levees.
  • Further back, but still on the floodplain, are shorter savanna woodlands with stands of Mopane on clay and other communities on sandier soils.
  • In the distance is the abrupt line of the Muchinga escarpment which forms the western boundary of the Park.
  • In between, extensive low hills have dwarf miombo woodland.

The Park is renowned for its concentrations of large mammals. Those most frequently seen are Baboon, Bushbuck, Buffalo, Eland, Elephant now less than a fifth of those of the 1970s), Giraffe (Thornicroft’s), Hartebeest (Lichtenstein’s), Hippopotamus, Hyena (Spotted), Kudu, Leopard, Lion, Monkey (Vervet), Oribi, Impala, Puku, Reedbuck, Roan Antelope, Warthog, Wild Dog, Wildebeest (Cookson’s), Zebra, and a large number of Crocodiles in perennial rivers. In the recent past the Valley was famous for its large populations of Black Rhinoceros but poaching since the mid-1970s has resulted in virtual extinction: now there are some efforts at its reintroduction.

There is prolific bird-life – 458 bird species are on the current Park list, of these about 205 are Palearctic or Afrotropical migrants; those of global conservation concern are Madagascar Squacco Heron, Lesser Flamingo, Pallid Harrier, Corn Crake, Wattled Crane, Great Snipe, Greater Spotted Eagle. A list can be found on the back of the Map, 2nd edition (Chapter 6).

The Park has abundant artifacts from the middle Stone Age; extensive sies of fossilized plants and reptiles; Kimberlite Pipe (diamond) formations; and saline and hot springs.

Climate

There are three distinct seasons in the Luangwa Valley, dry, hot and wet. Temperatures during these seasons vary from lows of 10°C in June and July to highs of 40°C, in October. Rain falls mainly as showers or storms with bright sunny intervals starting in November continuing until mid-January through February, when more steady rain occurs.

The river is liable to flood from January to March.

From Weather spark.com * Max Temp  (°C) Min Temp  (°C) Rainfall averages (mm)
January to April 30 20 400
May –July 25 15 0
August–December 31 21 202

*  https://weatherspark.com/y/96345/Average-Weather-in-Luangwa-Zambia-Year-Round

Vegetation research in the Luangwa Valley was initiated by Bill Astle in the early to mid-1960s. His work and the subsequent studies inspired by him have established a foundation for further research and the results of this work remain relevant for future studies. Unfortunately, many of these are no longer easy to access and others were never published. This website aims to make some of these more readily accessible.

In order to assist navigation, each page has selectable buttons in the margins. These are explained in a diagram following the Contents list.

A brief obituary of Bill Astle follows the Contents list below.

CONTENTS     

Click on Chapter name to open 

  • CHAPTER 11. FOR A FUTURE ARTICLE
  • CHAPTER 12. FOR A FUTURE ARTICLE

OBITUARY

WILLIAM ASTLE. 11 December 1932 – 2 March 2006

Bill Astle, Gaborone c.1977

Bill spent 17 years working in Northern Rhodesia and Zambia, first as an agricultural research officer in the Agricultural Department, and later as a biologist in the Department of Wildlife and National Parks – most of it in the Luangwa Valley, and finally, as Chief Biologist stationed at our HQ in Chilanga. He left in 1973, the early 70’s being the period when a core of men consumed with the passion of conservation departed the Game Department for ever: Frank Ansell, John Clarke, Phillip Berry, Barry Shenton, Johnny Uys.

Bill was a wonderfully eccentric man whose generosity of spirit was combined in such delightful ways: I well remember the saga of the jacket many years ago; Bill lending his only jacket to his malonda, pitying him for the cold nights of winter in the Luangwa, then, when it was time for him to go to England on leave, looking for the jacket in irritation, then remembering what he had done with it, and ‘borrowing’ it back for his three month’s leave. And before that, in the 60’s when he gone on leave again and had returned with a wife, a beautiful and exotic creature from Brazil called Mercedes, news of her arrival drawing us to his fence, peering through with binoculars to see if it was true. And how many are the Zambians, who, having worked as labourers or carriers in the bush for Bill, or taken under his wing as research assistants – and later assisted financially by him, rose to be university lecturers, senior civil servants and the first fully certified Zambian tourist guides.

Of course, Bill’s patch in life was the Luangwa Valley, a place which he loved deeply, where indeed I found him in 1966 – already a veteran bachelor and biologist it seemed in our beloved Game Department, already with a reputation as a plant ecologist with a deep knowledge of the miombo forest. In the early 1970’s, Bill became the Department’s Chief Wildlife Research Officer, he, Mercedes and their daughter, Marilia, leaving soon after in 1973. He then went into consultancy work, moving to Botswana to carry out ecological studies for F.A.O. in the Okavango and at a research station near Gaborone. In the late 80’s he was back in the valley, again doing some remote sensing work with Steve Prince, his former protege, moving back into the same research camp he had left long before at old Mfuwe.

Bill I saw as the quintessential Englishman of the north of England: careful with his money, generous, disdaining of affected ways, a man who found great delight in a quaint phrase, a humourous gesture…a man who loved a good laugh. Of that we had many. And of course, there was cricket: we played together in many places: in Fort Jameson, on the old Mfuwe airstrip in the Luangwa amidst the calling cards of a herd of buffalo that had rested there the previous night, in Gaborone and in Lobatse, and had watched cricket at his beloved Old Trafford in the sun, and in the cold. He will soon be there again, or in the valley, striding rapidly along, the carriers struggling to keep up with him; Bill, our friend.

I.P.A. Manning, 2006

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