The problem

A widening gap between mining and the water downstream of it.

Global freshwater demand is on track to outstrip supply, and mining is one of the sharpest, most immediate versions of that problem across Southern and Central Africa. In March 2025, a tailings dam failure at a copper mine in Zambia's Copperbelt released an estimated 50 million litres of acidic wastewater into the Kafue River basin — not an isolated event, but one point in a documented pattern of Copperbelt water contamination. No accessible system today ties ground-truth data, dam instrumentation, and downstream water signals together in one place; each exists in isolation, often in specialist tools smaller operators, regulators, and downstream communities never see.