Welcome to the CAPIA Project Website!

Purpose

The CAPIA project aims to quantify cross-border air pollution and the impacts of ozone on agriculture in the following SADC countries: Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Problem Statement

The atmosphere does not respect political or geographic boundaries. As a result, air pollution that is generated in one country may be transported over its borders and impact on the vegetation, soils, water bodies and even buildings and materials of its neighbours. Ultimately, these impacts on ecosystems would translate into social and economic impacts.

Main Objectives

• To estimate the ambient concentrations of primary and secondary air pollutants in Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Botswana and South Africa and their deposition rates using computer modeling, and to apportion these to each of the source countries.
• To produce regional maps of the estimated deposition rates and ambient concentrations of the primary and secondary pollutants.
• To estimate the air pollutant concentration at which production of commercially important crops begins to decline (threshold level) and thereby identify areas that are potentially sensitive to these air pollutants and where food security may be threatened.
• To estimate the impacts of cross-border air pollution on the economy of each country, using the agricultural sector as a test case.