Your search found 17 records
1 1997. With rivers to the sea: Interaction of land activities, fresh water and enclosed coastal seas: Abstracts, posters. Joint Conference - 7th Stockholm Water Symposium and the 3rd International Conference on the Environmental Management of Enclosed Coastal Seas (EMECS), 10-15 August 1997, Stockholm, Sweden. 119p.
(Location: IWMI-HQ Call no: 333.91 G000 WIT Record No: H021084)
2 Gordon, L.; Folke, C. 2000. Ecohydrological landscape management for human well-being. Water International, 25(2):178-184.
(Location: IWMI-HQ Call no: PER Record No: H026755)
3 2010. A revolution in wastewater management. Blue Diamonds - Oceans and Coasts, July 2010. 14p.
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H043032)
(4.30 MB)
4 Rodina, L.; Harris, L. M. 2016. Water services, lived citizenship, and notions of the state in marginalised urban spaces: the case of Khayelitsha, South Africa. Water Alternatives, 9(2):336-355. (Special issue: Water, Infrastructure and Political Rule).
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H047681)
(0.94 MB) (960 KB)
In this paper we argue that in South Africa the state is understood and narrated in multiple ways, notably differentiated by interactions with service provision infrastructure and the ongoing housing formalisation process. We trace various contested narratives of the state and of citizenship that emerge from interactions with urban water service infrastructures. In effect, the housing formalisation process rolls out through specific physical infrastructures, including, but not limited to, water services (pipes, taps, water meters). These infrastructures bring with them particular logics and expectations that contribute to a sense of enfranchisement and associated benefits to some residents, while others continue to experience inadequate services, and linked exclusions. More specifically, we learn that residents who have received newly built homes replacing shack dwellings in the process of formalisation more often narrate the state as legitimate, stemming from the government role as service provider. Somewhat surprisingly, these residents at times also suggest compliance with obligations and expectations for payment for water and responsible water consumption. In contrast, shack dwellers more often characterise the state as uncooperative and neglectful, accenting state failure to incorporate alternative views of what constitutes appropriate services. With an interest in political ecologies of the state and water services infrastructures, this paper traces the dynamic processes through which states and citizenship are mutually and relationally understood, and dynamically evolving. As such, the analysis offers insights for ongoing state-society negotiations in relation to changing infrastructure access in a transitioning democracy.
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H048923)
(0.42 MB)
Drawing on an analysis of water access and supply in Cape Town (South Africa) and Accra (Ghana), we illustrate that neoliberal and human right to water-oriented transformations co-constitute each other discursively, practically, and in policy implementation. Focusing on the transfer of policies and experiences (particularly conjoined demand management-free basic water programs and related social contestation), we provide examples of how neoliberal logics and human right to water principles intersect in evolving hybrid regulatory landscapes, which are characterized by contradiction. The human right to water makes a difference by influencing the drafting and implementation of water-related policies that affect to the lives of poor and vulnerable populations. Yet this process unfolds unevenly, as human right to water principles and practices are contextually applied, often alongside neoliberalizing policy instruments within evolving regulatory landscapes. Our analysis reveals the uneven effects of policy experimentation, transfer, and adaptation. The analysis shows that the principle of the human right to water affects the transformation of policy options circulating in the water sector, but it does so in relation to the institutional histories and policy options associated with uneven patterns of variegated neoliberalization in the water sector.
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H049350)
(0.42 MB)
The infamous drought of 2015–2017 in Cape Town (South Africa) provides important lessons on water governance. While it is undeniable that an unprecedented sequence of two record-low rainfall years instigated the ‘water crisis’, this essay argues that the severity of the drought may have been mitigated by good governance, both in terms of diversifying water sources and managing existing supplies. Historically, water authorities have focussed on surface-water resources for Cape Town’s water supply. Cape Town’s ample groundwater has not been utilised to any notable extent. It is concluded that the crisis, once passed, may be viewed as auspicious, for not only did it provide the impetus to adapt Cape Town’s water supply, thereby better incorporating its groundwater resources, but the crisis stands as a case in point to justify future investments in water security, not only for Cape Town, but for other cities as well.
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H049405)
(1.60 MB)
Many cities are experiencing increasing water resource stress. In Cape Town, South Africa, surface water supplies are at a record low due to a multi-year drought crisis which began in 2015. This paper analyzes the range of motivations, possibilities and obstacles related to diversifying Cape Town’s water supply system through the upscaling of groundwater resources. Drawing on insights from local experts, it is maintained that uncertainty surrounding groundwater and drought-management practices present significant barriers to Cape Town’s ongoing water diversification efforts. This paper provides further insight and discussion for future water planning in Cape Town, as well as for other urban, water-scarce, regions.
8 Bruce, A.; Brown, C.; Avello, P.; Beane, G.; Bristow, J.; Ellis, L.; Fisher, S.; Freeman, S. St. G.; Jimenez, A.; Leten, J.; Matthews, N.; Romano, O.; Ruiz-Apilanez, I.; Saikia, P.; Shouler, M.; Simkins, P. 2020. Human dimensions of urban water resilience: perspectives from Cape Town, Kingston upon Hull, Mexico city and Miami. Water Security, 9:100060. [doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wasec.2020.100060]
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H049573)
(0.96 MB)
Resilience is a topic of extensive academic discourse as its relevance is elevated in response to climate change. There is limited research into the concept of resilience from the perspective of those in fields of practice. To address this gap, we conducted fieldwork in four cities to ask for perspectives on what enables cities to cope with water related shocks and stresses. Based on analysis of interview responses and focus group discussions, we propose key characteristics of human, societal and institutional capacity necessary for urban water resilience. We discuss findings in the context of evidence gathered in the field and prevalent work in current water resilience literature. It is our hope that this work may provide insights into the critically important human dimensions necessary for a shift towards resilience as a prevailing paradigm for urban water management.
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H049708)
(0.50 MB)
The interruption of essential water services in Cape Town, foreshadowed as ‘Day Zero,’ is one of several recent examples of urban water scarcity connected to the language of urgent climate change. Johannesburg, with its larger and growing population and deeply enmeshed water and power infrastructures, is currently regarded as one drought away from disaster. As a result, the lessons to be learned from Cape Town are under active debate in South Africa. We used Q method to examine the structure of perspectives on urban water scarcity among South African water management practitioners. Our results illustrate distinct viewpoints differentiated by focus on corruption and politics, supply and demand systems, and social justice concerns as well as a distinct cohort of pragmatic optimists. Our analysis underscores the significance of public trust and institutional effectiveness, regardless of otherwise sound policy or infrastructure tools. As practitioners explicitly connect domains of competency to solvable and critical problems, integrated systems approaches will require deliberate interventions. Furthermore, urban water crises exacerbate and are exacerbated by existing experiences of racial and economic inequality, but this effect is masked by focus on demand management of average per capita water consumption and characterization of water scarcity as ‘the new normal.’
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: 333.91 G000 ALL Record No: H049524)
(1.26 MB)
Society’s greatest use of water is in food production; a fact that puts farmers centre stage in global environmental management. Current management of food value chains, however, is not well set up to enable farmers to undertake their dual role of feeding a growing population and stewarding natural resources. This book considers the interconnected issues of real water in the environment and “virtual water” in food value chains and investigates how society influences both fields. This perspective draws out considerable challenges for food security and for environmental stewardship in the context of ongoing global change. The book also discusses these issues by region and with global overviews of selected commodities. Innovation relevant to the kind of change needed for the current food system to meet future challenges is reviewed in light of the findings of the regional and thematic analysis.
11 Mukherjee, A.; Scanlon, B. R.; Aureli, A.; Langan, Simon; Guo, H.; McKenzie, A. A. (Eds.) 2021. Global groundwater: source, scarcity, sustainability, security, and solutions. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Elsevier. 676p.
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: IWMI Record No: H050267)
(0.18 MB)
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H050235)
(1.94 MB) (1.94 MB)
Calls for transformative adaptation to climate change require attention to the type of capacity building that can support it. Community-level capacity building can help to ensure ownership and legitimacy of longer-term interventions. Given that marginalized communities are highly vulnerable to climate risk, it is important to build their capacity to adapt locally and to integrate their perspectives into higher-level adaptation measures. Current adaptation policy does not pay sufficient attention to this. Using a Cape Town-based project on water governance in low-income urban settlements, this paper explores how a transdisciplinary research project supported capacity building. Our findings suggest that knowledge co-creation at the community level is central to the capacity building that is needed in order to inform transformative adaptation. The collaborative methodology used is also important; we illustrate how a transdisciplinary approach can contribute to transformative adaptation where knowledge is co-produced to empower community-level actors and organizations to assert their perspectives with greater confidence and legitimacy. We argue that if capacity building processes shift from the top-down transferal of existing knowledge to the co-creation of contextual understandings, they have the potential to deliver more transformative adaptation. By considering diverse sources of knowledge and knowledge systems, capacity building can start to confront inequalities and shift dominant power dynamics. Adaptation policy could provide more guidance and support for community-level transdisciplinary processes that can enable this type of transformative adaptation.
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H050854)
(14.80 MB) (14.8 MB)
The need to improve groundwater security remains critical, especially in urban areas where demand for groundwater as an alternative source of water supply is increasing following unprecedented population growth. Climate change continues to threaten groundwater resources in such areas. This study assessed and analysed data from a variety of sources that required holistic analytical tools to demonstrate the impacts of climate change on groundwater quality at the local level. We evaluated how climate conditions affect groundwater quality using a hydrological model (WaterWorld model) in a GIS context. The Cape Flats Aquifer in the city of Cape Town in South Africa was chosen as a case study. The WaterWorld model was used to calculate hydrologic scenarios based on climate change factors and groundwater quality parameters for the period 1950–2000. Mean annual precipitation and temperature were simulated using the multi-model mean and Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 for the years 2041–2060. Simulation results showed that annual precipitation will increase until 2041 and then decrease until 2060. A significant temperature increase of 1.9 °C–2.3 °C was predicted. Water balance simulations showed a decrease of about 8.6% per year under the future dry climate. ArcGIS 10.3 was used to combine geospatial data and develop a groundwater vulnerability map. Modelling analysis based on GIS showed that the southern and central suburbs of the study area are more susceptible to groundwater contamination and have high surface runoff and higher average temperatures. The groundwater vulnerability index and electrical conductivity concentrations showed a strong positive correlation when the model was validated using linear regression analysis (R2 = 0.99, P < 0.05). In this article, we recommend the use of the WaterWorld model in a GIS environment to simulate hydrologic scenarios on climate change and groundwater quality parameters to provide practical and feasible insights for actions to improve groundwater management.
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H050982)
(2.20 MB)
Conventional water management strategies, where water is extracted, used and then disposed of are no longer enough to address water shortage in cities. Climate change, population growth and economic development are putting available water resources under pressure. A system dynamics model of the City of Cape Town’s water system serves as a case study to evaluate policy interventions, aimed at extracting value from retainable and recyclable water sources to address the growing water shortage experienced in cities. Retention of rainwater, the reuse of greywater and the treatment of wastewater for reuse, are identified as potential water sources. The results provide insight into the behavioural response of the water system, by evaluating the water supply stress and cost of policy interventions related to these alternative sources. It is concluded that only a combination of conservation management and water retention and recycling will reduce water stress over the long term.
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H051396)
(0.61 MB) (624 KB)
Water Sensitive Design (WSD) is gaining attention as a Nature-based Solution (NbS) to urban water problems. It incorporates green infrastructure with engineered urban water systems through innovative design of the built environment and urban landscape. In Africa, Johannesburg and Cape Town are two cities engaging with WSD at a policy level. This paper uses the Strategic Niche Management (SNM) approach in a comparative analysis of ongoing engagement with WSD in Johannesburg and Cape Town. We explore the extent to which this engagement signals the launch of the transition towards water resilience. WSD represents a niche that is in synergy with the visions of sustainable urban (water and environmental) management in both cities. Results indicate a progressive engagement with WSD by different actors at regime and niche levels. However, the lack of coordination and capacity deficiencies due to limited social networks and higher order learning are challenges that constrain take-off and further consolidation of the WSD approach in the transition towards water resilient futures. Furthermore, we find urban governance practitioners struggle with reconciling the pursuit of visions of sustainability to be realised through nature-based urban development with the pressing infrastructure deficits that persist in most African cities.
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H051870)
(2.14 MB) (2.14 MB)
Fair allocation of diminishing natural resources is increasingly central to sustainability. This includes the allocation of costs related to providing access, such as dams, pipes and pumps delivering clean water. Water tariffs are often designed to both recover these costs, meet social needs of water services to the poor, and incentivise conservation in dry times. However, strained public finances, prolonged droughts and economic inequality can undermine these goals and force prioritisations that many see as unfair. This happened in Cape Town, South Africa, during its 2015–2018 water crisis. This study investigates what residents in three different socioeconomic contexts view as fair water tariffs 1 year after the crisis. Using Q method, we describe five distinct perspectives on fairness: ‘the Insurer’, ‘the Individualist’, ’the Bureaucrat’, ‘the Humanitarian’, and ‘the Prepper’. These, we argue, can help distinguish between different ideas of what fairness implies, and what is required to promote it. We exemplify this by examining how viewpoints might have been shaped by specific communities’ experiences during and after the apartheid state’s discriminatory segregation policies. Using distributive, procedural and interactional interpretations of fairness, we discuss how the complex layers of poverty, inequality, mistrust, privilege and discrimination might produce different experiences and ideas of who should pay for and benefit from water services. Using these insights, we also reflect on the merits of tariffs that emphasise cost recovery and resource conservation over social needs, and the risks this poses for growing informal settlements in climate-stressed cities of the global South.
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H052453)
(0.55 MB) (560 KB)
In many countries, catchment restoration is underfunded. This study aims to address whether household water pricing could be used as a mechanism for securing funds for catchment restoration. The objectives were to determine households' willingness to pay (WTP) for their existing water use, investigate whether institutional trust and municipal satisfaction influenced WTP, and establish whether aggregate consumer surplus at the municipal scale could cover the costs needed to finance catchment restoration. Surveys were conducted on 502 households in three metropolitan municipalities in South Africa. Contingent valuation revealed that average WTP for water was between 12 and 137% more and 32 and 73% more than what households currently pay for water per month in Cape Town and eThekwini, respectively. Satisfaction with municipal service delivery positively influenced WTP, while institutional trust did not. In Cape Town, based on the aggregate WTP from the higher income categories, consumer surplus was 779 million South African Rand (ZAR)/year, more than double the estimated cost required to restore the catchment areas supplying water to the city over 30 years. In eThekwini, consumer surplus was equal to the amount needed over 30 years (250 million ZAR/year). These results demonstrate the significant potential to raise water tariffs for higher income households in metropolitan municipalities.
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