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Papers by david chikodzi

Sustainable Development Goals Series, 2021

The Sustainable Development Goals Series is Springer Nature's inaugural cross-imprint book series... more The Sustainable Development Goals Series is Springer Nature's inaugural cross-imprint book series that addresses and supports the United Nations' seventeen Sustainable Development Goals. The series fosters comprehensive research focused on these global targets and endeavours to address some of society's greatest grand challenges. The SDGs are inherently multidisciplinary, and they bring people working across different fields together and working towards a common goal. In this spirit, the Sustainable Development Goals series is the first at Springer Nature to publish books under both the Springer and Palgrave Macmillan imprints, bringing the strengths of our imprints together. The Sustainable Development Goals Series is organized into eighteen subseries: one subseries based around each of the seventeen respective Sustainable Development Goals, and an eighteenth subseries, "Connecting the Goals," which serves as a home for volumes addressing multiple goals or studying the SDGs as a whole. Each subseries is guided by an expert Subseries Advisor with years or decades of experience studying and addressing core components of their respective Goal. The SDG Series has a remit as broad as the SDGs themselves, and contributions are welcome from scientists, academics, policymakers, and researchers working in fields related to any of the seventeen goals. If you are interested in contributing a monograph or curated volume to the series, please contact the Publishers: Zachary Romano [Springer; zachary.romano@ springer.com] and Rachael Ballard [Palgrave Macmillan; rachael.ballard@ palgrave.com].

Bulletin of Geography. Socio-economic Series, 2022

The cruise ship industry was one of the fastest growing subsectors of the tourism industry before... more The cruise ship industry was one of the fastest growing subsectors of the tourism industry before the advent of COVID-19. This paper examines the prospects and recovery of the cruise ship industry from the devastating impacts of COVID-19 on the industry. The study relied mostly on event study and secondary data, including survey data from authoritative sources, data from representative organisations, news reports and academic literature. The results show that the industry exhibited high levels of customer loyalty and resilience to the COVID-19-induced downturn. The industry also adopted additional protocols to improve public health on board and protect the health and safety of customers, crews and visited communities. However, continued travel restrictions at both source and destination markets, as well as the continued resurgence of the virus and related uncertainties, threaten the recovery of the industry. Mandatory vaccination of both crew and passengers needs to be considered.

The impact of landcover/landuse type on the groundwater scenarios has not been investigated exten... more The impact of landcover/landuse type on the groundwater scenarios has not been investigated extensively in Zimbabwe due to lack of groundwater observation data. The research was aimed at using remote sensing to unravel the groundwater scenarios under different landcover/landuse types in the middle Save catchment of Zimbabwe. The research used the gravity recovery and climate experiment (GRACE) satellite to measure regional groundwater fluctuations from 2004-2010. Landsat satellite images were also used to classify the study area into three landcover/landuse types: grasslands, forests and shrublands. The results showed that grasslands occupy 59 % of the land area, forests occupy 22 % of the place and shrublands cover19 % of the study area. On seasonal groundwater scenarios, areas under forests had the highest magnitude of groundwater recharge (up to 20cm) and also the highest levels of groundwater lose (up to-20cm). Shrublands had recharge levels of up 13cm and loses of about-14cm. G...

Sustainable Development Goals Series, 2021

Hotel management is becoming more difficult in the face of increasing and repeated natural and hu... more Hotel management is becoming more difficult in the face of increasing and repeated natural and human-induced disasters, particularly floods, cyclones and earthquakes. Hotel managers should come up with disaster risk reduction (DRR) and management plans that include early warning, search and rescue (evacuations) and relief and recovery. While there are numerous incidences of hotel infrastructure being razed to the ground, many hotels remain operational, but under the risk of repeat events. Through repeated direct observations, interviews and Geographical Information Systems, this chapter investigates the extent and potential causes of repeated flooding of The Centurion Hotel, South Africa. It further examines the DRR and management protocols put in place by the hotel and their effectiveness. The Centurion Hotel has been a victim of repeated flooding, with the most recent event in December 2019 being the worst, forcing it to close twice in 2020 affecting 84 employees. The flooding is ...

Counting the Cost of COVID-19 on the Global Tourism Industry, 2020

The unprecedented outbreak of the coronavirus in 2020 provided an illustration of a neglected ris... more The unprecedented outbreak of the coronavirus in 2020 provided an illustration of a neglected risk that brought about an economic disaster for the world. The COVID-19 pandemic, which started as a public health emergency, rapidly transformed into an economic crisis the world had not witnessed in over a century. In particular, the COVID-19 pandemic was a source of systematic risk, which filled global stock markets with uncertainty and resulted in big moves of share prices. Using the event study methodology that significantly utilised secondary data collection and analysis, the chapter examined the impacts of COVID-19 on tourism-related stocks. Vicissitudes in stock value were used as a signature mark for the impacts. It was observed that the news of the COVID-19 outbreak and measures put in place to curb its spread dampened the stock markets and led to declines in tourism-related stock prices. The measures included travel bans, bans on mass gatherings, as well as the closure of hotels and restaurants. Tourism firms and those in their value chain became the worst performers on global stock markets with some losing up to 80% of their value within a 2-week period. This translated into billions of dollars in lost value. Governments responded to these losses by issuing stimulus and rescue packages for distressed industries. These led to notable recoveries by some firms, although most in the tourism industry remained negative. The chapter recommends an additional rescue package for the tourism industry that must be timed with visible signs that the pandemic is under control.

Sustainable Development Goals Series, 2021

Counting the Cost of COVID-19 on the Global Tourism Industry, 2020

The global entertainment sector is a multibillion-dollar economy whose size surpasses several cou... more The global entertainment sector is a multibillion-dollar economy whose size surpasses several countries’ annual domestic gross product. Regardless of the significance of this sector, it is often an under-researched branch of the tourism industry. For example, there is barely a study on how the previous epidemics and pandemics affected this critical sector. This study, therefore, investigates the impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) on entertainment (music, television and special events). Using archival and secondary data from authoritative sources, the study showed that the impact of the pandemic was devastating on the sector, leading to multibillion-dollar losses for global entertainment companies. Global entertainment companies such as Walt Disney World and Box Office suffered massive losses, which forced several companies to furlough employees and executives in the battle for survival and to protect capital. The study also showed that the pandemic disrupted both the demand side and the supply side of business in the entertainment sector, which resulted in cancellations of festivals and film production at a time of surging demand for entertainment. Given the nature of the pandemic, 2020 proved to be a challenging year for many entertainment companies – a situation likely to play out for the next 2–3 years as companies battle to recover. The study recommends a post-pandemic assessment of each segment of the sector to allow it to build a disaster preparedness and management system, which does not seem to be in place at the moment.

Sustainable Development Goals Series, 2021

Globally there has been increased concerns over the state of ocean pollution which often become e... more Globally there has been increased concerns over the state of ocean pollution which often become evident after extreme hydro-meteorological events such as floods. Chief among the concerns is the deposition of solid waste into harbours, beaches and estuaries by floods. A thought on harbours and beaches takes one to the blue (ocean) economy space, a subject that is embedded in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14. The Durban Harbour is one of Africa’s most prominent and busiest ports handling cargo for South Africa and several southern African countries. In addition, its beaches rank among the world’s best. Using events study, document analysis, secondary data and in-depth interviews, the chapter aims to determine how the April 2019 floods revealed the challenges in the waste management systems in Durban, South Africa, and how the concerned stakeholders, among them government, the private sector and non-governmental organisations, responded to the challenge. The re...

One of the imminent threats posed by climate variability and change is food security in Zimbabwe&... more One of the imminent threats posed by climate variability and change is food security in Zimbabwe's semi-arid regions like Masvingo. As an adaptive strategy crop forecasting was employed to improve crop productivity. The objective of the study was to investigate climatic characteristics responsible for yields in the maize, sorghum and millet crop varieties and to calibrate

Copyright © 2013 David Chikodzi et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creat... more Copyright © 2013 David Chikodzi et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. A lot of researches have been done on the negative impacts and challenges caused by extreme weather conditions due to climate change and variability. Not many researches have been focused on the positive side in form of opportunities presented due to climate change. The study aimed to show the climate change scenarios and explore possible opportuni-ties that could be derived from such scenarios in the southeastern region of Zimbabwe. The research used climate data records from three Zimbabwe Meteorological Services Department run weather stations in the region. The time series data were analyzed to show trends of rainfall and temperature over time. A questionnaire survey was also carried out to enquire from the farmers if they percei...

Counting the Cost of COVID-19 on the Global Tourism Industry

After witnessing and experiencing the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), the Middle East r... more After witnessing and experiencing the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and Ebola pandemics and epidemic, one would assume the world was prepared to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. Alas! This was not to be! Officially, the first cases of COVID-19 were reported to the World Health Organisation (WHO) on 31 December 2019. The impact has been catastrophic, with the entire world affected. Through event study, document and critical discourse analysis methods, the chapter looks at the preparedness, response and recovery measures put in place to deal with COVID-19. It emerged that countries responded differently, some late and some in panic. The main goal was to “flatten” the curve as infections skyrocketed, leading to deaths. The COVID-19 pandemic also placed severe economic burdens to countries across the world. The global epicentre of the pandemic kept shifting, starting in China, moving to Italy, and then to the USA. As the chapter was being completed, Russia had become the second in terms of infections after the USA. The COVID-19 early intervention measures mainly focused on handwashing, promotion of sneezing and coughing etiquette, mask-wearing and social distancing. However, as it became clearer that the pandemic continued spreading, additional measures, including full national lockdowns, were instituted. Since the world was still experiencing lockdowns, amidst other countries moving into the recovery phases, the chapter recommends the sharing of COVID-19 preparedness, response, and recovery strategies and plans. The world is encouraged to consider the COVID-19 within the broader realm of the United Nations Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and also work with the WHO as the custodian of global health matters. Lastly, international protocols on certain disease outbreaks with potential to balloon into global pandemics such as coronaviruses must be refined to force countries and territories to notify the WHO earlier after a certain threshold of such diseases’ outbreak has been reached.

Counting the Cost of COVID-19 on the Global Tourism Industry

The past three decades have witnessed an increase in zoonotic infections leading to severe effect... more The past three decades have witnessed an increase in zoonotic infections leading to severe effects on global public health. These emerge and re-emerge when animal infections breach species barriers to infect human beings. At the same time, the world has witnessed an increase in the popularity and commodification of religious tourism and pilgrimages. During religious festivals, there is always the risk of infectious diseases being spread, which may result in these festivals being postponed and/or cancelled. This chapter examines the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on religious tourism and pilgrimages around the world, especially the Hajj and the Umrah, both hosted in Saudi Arabia. Document analyses supplemented with fine-grain analysis were the preferred methods for collecting and analysing data. The research observed that, globally, iconic religious events had to be cancelled, postponed or significantly scaled down, resulting in reduced tourist arrivals. It also emerged that decisions that were made to cancel, postpone or significantly scale down such festivals or pilgrimages may have saved the world from aggravated circumstances causing a spike in COVID-19 numbers. The chapter recommends that aggressive marketing for religious and pilgrimage tourism be embarked on once COVID-19 has been contained and people are comfortable travelling again. Where possible, some events could be rescheduled, although this will not be possible with religious holidays like Easter and Ramadan. The chapter also acknowledges the interventions made by several governments to mitigate the impacts COVID-19, which could be repeated in future if still effective for similar pandemics.

Counting the Cost of COVID-19 on the Global Tourism Industry

GeoJournal

Climate change-induced extreme weather events have been at their worst increase in the past decad... more Climate change-induced extreme weather events have been at their worst increase in the past decade (2010-2020) across Africa and globally. This has proved disruptive to global socioeconomic activities. One of the challenges that has been faced in this regard is the increased coastal flooding of cities. This study examined the trends and impacts of coastal flooding in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Making use of archival climate data and primary data from key informants and field observations, it emerged that there is a statistically significant increase in the frequency of flooding and consequent human and economic losses from such in the coastal cities of the province. Flooding in urban areas of the Western Cape is a factor of human and natural factors ranging from extreme rainfall, usually caused by persistent cut off-lows, midlatitude cyclones, cold fronts and intense storms. Such floods become compounded by poor drainage caused by vegetative overgrowth on waterways and land pollution that can be traced to poor drainage maintenance. Clogging of waterways and drainage systems enhances the risk of flooding. Increased urbanisation, overpopulation in some areas and non-adherence to environmental laws results in both the affluent and poor settling on vulnerable ecosystems. These include coastal areas, estuaries, and waterways, and this worsens the risk of flooding. The study recommends a comprehensive approach to deal with factors that increase the risk of flooding as informed by the provisions of both the Sustainable Development Goals framework and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 in a bid to de-risking human settlement in South Africa.

Sustainable Development Goals Series, 2021

Bulletin of Geography. Socio-economic Series, 2022

Sustainable Development Goals Series, 2021

Counting the Cost of COVID-19 on the Global Tourism Industry, 2020

Sustainable Development Goals Series, 2021

Counting the Cost of COVID-19 on the Global Tourism Industry, 2020

Sustainable Development Goals Series, 2021

Counting the Cost of COVID-19 on the Global Tourism Industry

GeoJournal