In mid-February 2025, southern Botswana and jap South Africa had been hit by heavy rainfall, sparking extreme flooding throughout the area. The floods claimed no less than 31 lives, together with 22 in KwaZulu-Natal (Mhlophe-Gumede, 2025), close to Durban, and no less than 9 in Botswana’s capital, Gaborone, amongst them six kids (Authorities of Botswana, 2025). No less than 5,000 folks have been displaced. The flooding throughout the border between Botswana and South Africa, brought on by heavy rainfall from the sixteenth to the Twentieth of February, wreaked havoc on each nations, shutting down main ports of entry into South Africa, forcing the non permanent closure of all authorities colleges in Botswana, and inflicting widespread visitors chaos. Many areas turned fully lower off, leaving residents stranded and emergency companies scrambling to reply to the aftermath.

To evaluate whether or not and to what extent human-induced local weather change altered the chance and depth of the heavy rainfall resulting in the flooding and what different elements in vulnerability and publicity performed an vital position in driving the impacts, scientists from Botswana, South Africa, Denmark, Mexico, Austria, Sweden, the Netherlands, america and the UK, studied the occasion as depicted in determine 1, focussing on the 5-day most rainfall within the area with probably the most extreme impacts.

Fundamental Findings

• Throughout the wet season Gaborone and different urbanised areas ceaselessly expertise flooding. Excessive-intensity rainfall overwhelms drainage programs, typically resulting in important city flooding. The capital metropolis’s drainage infrastructure has not saved tempo with its rising inhabitants density and speedy urbanisation rendering low-lying areas significantly inclined to extreme flooding occasions. 
• Even in immediately’s local weather, which has warmed by 1.3 °C, the 5-day heavy rainfall occasion noticed in February 2025 is comparatively uncommon, anticipated to happen solely as soon as each 10 to-200 years, relying on the supply of knowledge. We use a 50-year return interval for the rest of the research. Analysing climate station information for Gaborone we discover that the occasion has a return interval of 40 years, that means it has a 2-3% probability of occurring in any given 12 months. 
• To evaluate if human-induced local weather change influenced the heavy rainfall within the area, we first decide if there’s a development within the observations, obtainable since about 1950, that aligns with the tempo of  the earth’s warming. Outcomes present that noticed 5-day rainfall occasions like that in February 2025 would have been a lot much less prone to happen in a colder local weather. Extrapolating this development again to a 1.3 °C colder local weather, this enhance in depth is estimated to be about 60%. 
• To quantify the position of human-induced local weather change we additionally analyse local weather mannequin information over the comparatively small research area for the historic interval. Total, the obtainable local weather fashions present very totally different outcomes. Some present a big enhance within the frequency and depth of utmost rainfall occasions, as within the observations, others present no change or perhaps a lower. This could be a results of local weather change forcing within the fashions being comparable in energy with pure variability. Thus we can’t exactly quantify the position of local weather change.
• When taking a look at a 2.6 °C hotter local weather in comparison with preindustrial (the extent of warming projected to happen later within the twenty first century) we discover that almost all of fashions present a further enhance within the magnitude of 5-day heavy rainfall occasions relative to 2025. This means the emergence of a local weather change sign beneath larger warming ranges. 
• Taking collectively: (1) the very sturdy historic development in all noticed datasets; (2) the truth that hotter air can maintain extra water vapour which results in a possible enhance in rainfall depth, and (3) the shift in direction of a rise within the majority of fashions with future warming, we conclude that human-induced local weather change amplified the rainfall resulting in flooding in southern Botswana, however can’t confidently quantify by how a lot.
• Contemplating that almost all of impacts of the February excessive climate occasion occurred because of flooding in city areas, and that flooding typically occurred traditionally, even beneath much less excessive occasions, it’s extremely doubtless that these impacts had been magnified by infrastructure not constructed to resist such excessive rainfall. Roads, drainage channels, and dams had been overwhelmed, whereas well being clinics (e.g. in Molapowabojang and Kanye) confronted extreme disruptions.
• There are ongoing efforts to strengthen flood resilience by means of improved drainage, land-use regulation, and catastrophe preparedness. Increasing drainage capability, implementing zoning to restrict growth in high-risk areas, and upgrading important infrastructure to resist each current and future local weather challenges can additional improve resilience. A complete method that integrates multi-hazard assessments into city planning, infrastructure growth, and catastrophe preparedness, together with stronger early warning programs, can enhance resilience to future excessive occasions.