Critical Minerals, Water Security and Industrialisation in Selected SADC Countries: Managing Water Risks, Unlocking Sustainable Solutions Democratic Republic of Congo, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe
Consultancy, Research Jobs
Job Description
Background
Critical mineral extraction and processing are often highly waterintensive and can create serious risks for both water quantity and quality. Water is used in mineral processing, dust suppression, washing, transport and waste management, while tailings, acidic drainage and untreated effluent can contaminate rivers, dams, wetlands and groundwater. while tailings storage facilities, acidic drainage and untreated effluents can contaminate rivers, dams, wetlands and groundwater. As extraction and processing expand into already stressed basins, industrial water use can compete with households, smallholder farmers and ecosystems. However, this is not an inevitable trade-off. Mining companies globally are increasingly adopting closed-loop water systems, high-recovery reverse osmosis, dry stacking of tailings, and desalination to reduce freshwater abstraction. In arid Namibia, some mines already rely on desalinated water rather than depleting scarce groundwater. In other settings, constructed wetlands and passive treatment systems have been used to rehabilitate water quality at lower cost.
The opportunity for SADC countries is to leapfrog to better practice from the outset, avoiding the legacy of uncontrolled pollution that has characterised mining in other regions. This study will document where such innovations are already working (even partially) and what policy, regulatory or financial barriers prevent their wider adoption. It will also identify where water risks are most acute, so that governments and companies can prioritise interventions.
Evidence from other regions shows the scale of the problem. In Chile’s Salar de Atacama, lithium and copper operations have been reported to consume more than 65% of local water resources, contributing to groundwater decline and ecological stress in an already arid area. Globally, the interaction between mineral extraction and water stress is becoming more acute as climate change reduces freshwater availability and increases demand from households, farming and industry. In 2024 alone, global lithium production was estimated to require about 456 billion litres of water, equivalent to the annual domestic water needs of roughly 62 million people in sub‑Saharan Africa, underscoring the scale of potential trade‑offs between mineral supply and basic water security.
These global pressures are intersecting with a rapid expansion of critical mineral production in Southern Africa. Zambia has announced ambitions to increase copper output to around 3 million tonnes per year over the coming decade to position itself as a key supplier for the energy transition. Zimbabwe is similarly seeking to move up the value chain by promoting beneficiation and value addition in its lithium sector, encouraging investments that go beyond concentrate exports toward intermediate products such as lithium sulphate and, eventually, batterygrade materials developments that will further increase water demand and pollution risks if not well managed. Beyond individual projects, regional infrastructure initiatives such as the Lobito Corridor which links the mineralrich Copperbelt of Zambia and southern DRC to the Atlantic coast via Angola and is being promoted as an integrated critical minerals value chain are likely to further concentrate mining and processing activities along key river basins and aquifers. While the corridor is framed as a catalyst for trade and development, it will also generate additional water demand and pollution risks in already stressed landscapes, raising questions about who will bear the waterrelated costs of this new supply chain and how crossborder water governance and safeguards will be managed.
At the same time, the SADC region is already experiencing climateinduced water stress. During the 2018–2019 and 2023–2024 drought cycles, countries such as Zimbabwe, Zambia and Namibia declared drought emergencies or national disasters, as poor rains reduced crop yields, undermined rural livelihoods and contributed to critically low water levels in major reservoirs such as Kariba, constraining hydropower generation and triggering rolling power cuts.These episodes illustrate how climate‑induced water stress is undermining both agricultural production and energy systems in the region, even before factoring in the additional demand and pollution pressures from expanding critical mineral extraction and processing. Agriculture remains a backbone of rural economies and employment in all four focus countries, with rainfed smallholder farming and livestock production particularly exposed to rainfall variability and water shortages. Any additional strain on water resources from critical mineral extraction and processing therefore risks cascading into reduced crop yields, livestock losses, higher food prices and deepening rural poverty.
Energy systems are also implicated. Zimbabwe and Zambia both rely heavily on hydropower from the Kariba Dam and other water bodies to meet domestic electricity demand and to power mining and industrial projects. When prolonged drought episodes drive down reservoir levels, hydropower output falls and grid reliability deteriorates, with knock‑on effects for mines and local economies. This creates a feedback loop: mining and value‑addition facilities require reliable electricity; electricity depends on sufficient water; and mining itself can further stress or pollute the very water bodies that underpin hydropower and downstream water users.
Within this broader context, African evidence is already pointing to concerning patterns on the ground. In Zimbabwe, studies and case documentation indicate that much of the lithium boom is concentrated in dry regions where rural communities already struggle with water insecurity. Reports from affected communities link lithium operations to water contamination, reduced access to safe water and broader livelihood impacts, including crop loss and increased burdens on women’s unpaid care work as they travel further to secure water. A documented case involving a lithium mine near Matezva Dam found that effluent discharge altered water quality and coincided with fish disappearance and damage to farming activities.
In Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, research in the African Copperbelt has documented mining‑related contamination of rivers, drinking water and food crops with elevated levels of trace metals, with associated risks to ecosystems and human health. In Zambia’s Kafue River Basin, decades of effluent discharges and several recent spills from upstream copper operations have polluted river water, killed fish, damaged crops and contaminated soils irrigated from the river, undermining the livelihoods and health of downstream communities. Similar patterns of water and soil pollution have been reported in mining areas of southern DRC, where copper‑cobalt operations have degraded local water sources and exposed communities to heightened risks of disease and long‑term health impacts.
Namibia illustrates these tensions acutely: it is one of the most arid countries in the world, and most mines are located in water‑stressed areas that depend heavily on groundwater abstraction and, increasingly, desalinated water. Recent reporting from Uis and other mining areas highlights how new lithium and tin operations have increased groundwater withdrawals, contributing to local water shortages that have disrupted schools and businesses and raised concerns about long‑term aquifer depletion. At the same time, Namibia’s electricity system already faces constraints from climate‑sensitive hydrological regimes, meaning that expanded mining and processing will have to contend with both water scarcity and power reliability risks.
Problem Statement
The global shift to clean energy is driving rapid expansion in critical mineral extraction and processing in SADC countries, generating jobs, revenue and industrialisation opportunities. At the same time, many of these operations are located in water-stressed parts of Southern Africa where climate change is already reducing freshwater availability.
While these minerals are framed as indispensable for decarbonisation, much less attention is paid to the water‑related environmental costs being imposed on local basins and mining‑affected communities. This creates a shared challenge for governments, companies and communities on how to manage water demand and quality risks from mining and processing without slowing industrialisation or undermining water security. Emerging evidence suggests that in some locations, unmanaged water use and pollution are creating tensions, damaging livelihoods and imposing costs that are not yet fully accounted for. In other locations, companies and regulators have begun to adopt water recycling, reuse, desalination and improved tailings management, but these practices are not yet systematic or widely scaled.
In Zimbabwe, Zambia, DRC and Namibia, critical minerals development is unfolding under conditions of climate stress, uneven regulatory enforcement, limited water monitoring, weak disclosure and inadequate mechanisms for remedy. Communities near mining sites report shrinking water access, water quality, pollution of dams and rivers, gendered burdens and poor participation in decisions affecting their water resources, while global analysis shows that at least 16% of land‑based critical mineral sites worldwide are already located in areas of high or extremely high-water stress, a share likely to rise as demand grows. Yet the true environmental and socio‑economic costs of mining‑related water depletion and pollution remain poorly understood and weakly priced into critical mineral projects, allowing companies to externalise significant water risks and damages onto communities, ecosystems and future generations, in ways that increasingly resemble “water bankruptcy”
Duties and Responsibilities
Despite growing concern, there is still limited comparative, field-based evidence across SADC countries on:
• Where water risks are most severe and likely to worsen under current trajectories;
• What water management technologies and practices are already working (or failing) in local contexts;
• What regulatory, financial or capacity barriers prevent wider adoption of better practice; and
• What practical, actionable solutions could help countries process critical minerals without depleting or polluting shared water resources.
This study responds to that gap by centring water as the primary unit of analysis and investigating how critical mineral extraction and processing in Zimbabwe, Zambia, DRC and Namibia affect water systems, water governance and environmental accountability, and what changes are required to protect water security in the context of the energy transition. It will provide not only theoretical claims, but factual, ground evidence on water risks and real-world solutions for water-efficient, low-pollution mineral processing that supports both industrialisation and water security.
Goal
To generate comparative, field-based evidence on water risks and water management solutions in critical minerals extraction and processing across Zimbabwe, Zambia, DRC and Namibia, in order to advise governments, companies, financiers and civil society on practical pathways to water-responsible industrialisation.
Objectives
• Assess current water risks by identifying where critical minerals operations are contributing to water depletion, quality degradation or community access problems, and where those risks are likely to grow under planned expansion in selected mining landscapes across Zimbabwe, Zambia, DRC and Namibia.
• Document existing and potential water management solutions by mapping technologies and practices already in use (e.g., water recycling, reuse, desalination, dry tailings, passive treatment, catchment rehabilitation) and evaluate their effectiveness, costs, and barriers to scaling.
• Analyse which legal, policy and institutional frameworks and enforcement mechanisms currently encourage or discourage better water management and identify practical reforms that could drive improvement in the context of critical minerals
• Quantify, where feasible, the economic costs of miningrelated water depletion and pollution (including elements of “water bankruptcy”) alongside the costs and benefits of water management investments to determine the extent to which companies and projects are internalising or externalising the true costs of their unmitigated environmental impacts.
• Examine how waterrelated mining impacts and costs are distributed across different social groups, with particular attention to gender, livelihoods, climate vulnerability and water justice.
• Develop practical, evidencebased recommendations for strengthening water governance and integrating robust water safeguards into critical minerals policies, investment decisions and ESG standards at national and regional levels for governments (policy, regulation, incentives), companies (technology, practice, reporting), financiers (ESG conditions, lending criteria) and civil society (oversight, community engagement).
Research questions
• What are the current, observable effects of critical mineral extraction and processing on water availability, water quality and community water access in selected mining-affected areas across the four countries?
• Where are water risks most severe, and how might they evolve under different expansion and climate scenarios?
• What are the observable and measurable economic costs of miningrelated water pollution and water depletion for communities, ecosystems and the wider economy (e.g. lost production, health impacts, additional water procurement costs, loss of ecosystem services), and how do these compare with the costs borne by companies?
• How do existing legal, policy and institutional frameworks shape water abstraction, wastewater discharge, pollution prevention, monitoring, disclosure, remediation and access to remedy in critical mineral projects?
• What regulatory or capacity gaps allow poor practice to persist, and what practical reforms could close those gaps?
• How are the burdens of water stress, contamination and “water bankruptcy” from mining distributed across social groups, particularly women, smallholder farmers, mineadjacent communities and other vulnerable water users?
• What policy, regulatory and practice changes are required to ensure that critical minerals projects incorporate the full costs of water use and pollution, prevent further environmental degradation and support more just and climateresilient water governance?
• To what extent are mining companies adopting and implementing effective water stewardship, water recycling, and pollution mitigation practices, and how transparent and accountable are these measures to regulators and affected communities?
• What desalination, dry tailings, closed-loop or other advanced water management practices are feasible in local contexts, and what are their capital, operating and maintenance costs?
• What cumulative and transboundary impacts could expanding critical mineral extraction and associated infrastructure corridors have on shared river basins, aquifers and downstream water users within the Southern African region?
• How do financing institutions, ESG frameworks, mineral buyers and global supply chain actors influence water governance, environmental accountability and corporate water management practices in critical minerals projects across Zimbabwe, Zambia, Namibia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo?
Scope of the study
The study will focus on selected SADC countries with growing strategic importance in critical mineral extraction, namely the Democratic Republic of Congo, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe. It will examine critical mineral extraction and processing through water as the primary unit of analysis, focusing on five interrelated dimensions:
• water availability (depletion, competition and stress),
• water quality (pollution pathways and ecosystem impacts),
• community water security (access, affordability, reliability and justice),
• water governance and accountability (laws, institutions, enforcement, economic instruments and ESG practice)
• water management technologies and practices (recycling, reuse, desalination, tailings management, rehabilitation)
Across the four countries, the study will assess both present impacts and future risks of “water bankruptcy” arising from expanded extraction, climate stress and regulatory weakness, with particular attention to lithium, cobalt, copper and other transition minerals relevant to each country context.
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Qualifications and Experience
Applicant Qualifications Details
At least five years’ experience in environmental law, water law, governance, responsible sourcing, environmental social governance and environmental protection. Applications will be considered from applicants with a minimum of a master’s degree in any one or more of the following areas: law, ESG, mining engineering, environmental planning and policy, public policy, or any other relevant field. The ability to research, write, review, and produce high-quality work, and competency in clear, concise documentation in plain English. Application is open to SADC nationalities especially Democratic Republic of Congo, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
How to Apply
