Botswana — Natural Disaster Report
Africa · Live status: High (20 active events)
Current situation: 20 natural disaster events are currently monitored in Botswana, with a worst severity of Severe. Details, sources and timestamps are listed below.
Botswana is dominated by the Kalahari and is highly drought-prone, with rainfall both low and highly variable. Drought affects livestock, crops and water supply, and has been declared nationally in multiple years. The Okavango Delta, fed by rain falling in Angola, floods seasonally in a cycle that supports the country's wildlife economy but can also inundate settlements. Flash flooding occurs in Gaborone and other towns during intense summer thunderstorms, and extreme heat regularly exceeds 40°C before the rains.
Live map — Botswana
Loading live data… · Marker positions are approximate; severity is labelled in each popup. Sources: USGS, GDACS, NASA EONET, NOAA/NWS, EMSC.
Active alerts & recent events
Latest earthquakes
No events match these filters right now. Data syncs run continuously — check the live map or widen the filters.
Near a particular city? Earthquake history near a place · disasters reported near a place · compare Botswana's earthquake record with another country.
By hazard in Botswana
Each of these has its own page: recent activity, the season it happens in, past events and what to do.
Risk profile
Drought as a recurring condition. Summer thunderstorm flooding November-March. Okavango seasonal flooding, peaking mid-year. Extreme heat October-January.
Disaster displacement in Botswana
5,636 internal displacements
Largest single event: 5,241 from flood, beginning 16 February 2025.
A displacement is a movement, not a person: somebody forced from home more than once in a year is counted more than once. These are movements caused by disasters only — displacement caused by conflict is counted separately and is not included here.
| Hazard | Displacements in 2025 |
|---|---|
| Flood | 5,636 |
| Year | Displacements |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 5,636 |
| 2024 | 1,043 |
Source: Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), Global Internal Displacement Database. IDMC publishes annually, so the latest year here is the latest they have finalised — not the current one.
River flood forecast — Botswana
No chance of exceeding even its 2-year flood flow in this forecast.
GloFAS alert level: Inactive · Peak expected: as currently ongoing · forecast of 19 Oct 2026
GloFAS forecasts are computer model output, published for information only. They are not a flood warning: only national and regional authorities issue flood warnings for their own area. A reporting point is a place on the model's river network, which may sit a few kilometres from the town it is named after. All 259 rivers →
What this site sees in Botswana
| Source | Events here, last 12 months | What it will not tell you |
|---|---|---|
| NASA FIRMS | 446 | Global, but it sees only what the satellite saw on its pass, and thick cloud hides fire. A quiet day here is not evidence that nothing burned. |
| WMO Alert Hub (national weather services) | 2 | Each warning comes from one country own alerting authority, so the scale is that agency scale and is not comparable between countries. Many agencies publish no coordinates, and those warnings are placed at the centre of the country rather than where the weather is - the area name is the real answer. |
| ReliefWeb (UN OCHA) | 1 | Global, but it reports on humanitarian RESPONSE. It arrives days after an event rather than during it, and never functions as a warning. |
| GDACS (European Commission / United Nations) | none | Global, but deliberately selective: it alerts on disasters likely to need INTERNATIONAL response. Serious local flooding that a national agency handles alone will not appear here. |
| US Geological Survey | none | Global for earthquakes above roughly M4.5, and denser where there are more seismometers. It publishes nothing about any other hazard. |
| European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre | none | Global for earthquakes, with the best coverage in Europe and the Mediterranean. It publishes nothing about any other hazard. |
| NASA EONET | none | Global and curated rather than automatic, so it is slower than the raw feeds and carries far fewer events. |
| MeteoAlarm (EUMETNET) | none | Europe only. It publishes no coordinates at all, so every warning here is placed at the centre of its country and the area name is the only reliable indication of where it applies. |
| NOAA Tsunami Warning Centers | none | These two centres warn for the US and Canadian coasts and for the Pacific and Caribbean basins. The Indian Ocean and Mediterranean have their own warning centres, which are not read here. Their routine information statements - the ones that say there is NO tsunami danger - are deliberately not imported, so an empty tsunami list means no threat was issued, not that nothing was checked. |
| NOAA National Hurricane Center | none | The Atlantic and the eastern and central Pacific only. No typhoon in the western Pacific and no cyclone in the Indian Ocean or the southern hemisphere appears here; those come from GDACS and from national services. |
Not applicable here: US National Weather Service — Covers the United States only. It publishes nothing about any other country, so its absence from a country page is not an outage. ; USGS Volcano Hazards Program — United States volcanoes only - Alaska, Hawaii, the Cascades, Yellowstone, California and the Northern Mariana Islands. It says nothing about Indonesia, Iceland, Italy or anywhere else, so its silence about a foreign eruption is not a judgement about that eruption.
Frequently asked questions
What natural disasters are currently active in Botswana?
There are currently 20 monitored natural disaster events in Botswana. The overall risk status is High. See the live list on this page for details and sources.
What natural hazards does Botswana face?
Botswana is dominated by the Kalahari and is highly drought-prone, with rainfall both low and highly variable. Drought affects livestock, crops and water supply, and has been declared nationally in multiple years.
When is the main natural disaster season in Botswana?
Drought as a recurring condition. Summer thunderstorm flooding November-March. Okavango seasonal flooding, peaking mid-year. Extreme heat October-January. Seasons shift from year to year; treat these as the usual pattern, not a forecast.
Where does this disaster data for Botswana come from?
Data is aggregated from official sources including USGS, GDACS (EC/UN), NASA EONET, ReliefWeb and national agencies. Every event links to its original source, and update times are shown on each record.
Data sources: USGS, GDACS (EC/UN), NASA EONET, NOAA/NWS, EMSC, ReliefWeb (UN OCHA). See data sources & attribution and methodology. This page does not replace official emergency guidance.