Your search found 4 records
1 Sullivan, C. A.; Meigh, J. R.; Giacomello, A. M.; Fediw, T.; Lawrence, P.; Samad, M.; Mlote, S.; Hutton, C.; Allan, J. A.; Schulze, R. E.; Dlamini, D. J. M.; Cosgrove, W.; Priscoli, J. D.; Gleick, P.; Smout, I.; Cobbing, J.; Calow, R.; Hunt, C.; Hussain, A.; Acreman, M. C.; King, J.; Malomo, S.; Tate, E. L.; O’Regan, D.; Milner, S.; Steyl, I. 2003. The water poverty index: development and application at the community scale. Natural Resources Forum, 27(3):189-199.
(Location: IWMI-HQ Call no: PER Record No: H032686)
2 Cobbing, J.. 2018. The North West dolomite aquifers, South Africa: a stalled opportunity for water security and development. Colombo, Sri Lanka: International Water Management Institute (IWMI). 20p. (Groundwater Solutions Initiative for Policy and Practice (GRIPP) Case Profile Series 03) [doi: https://doi.org/10.5337/2018.223]
Aquifers ; Groundwater management ; Groundwater level ; Groundwater extraction ; Water resources development ; Water governance ; Water user associations ; Water quality ; Water supply ; Water institutions ; Dolomite ; Public health ; Legal aspects ; Regulations ; Policy making ; Municipal authorities ; Local authorities ; Hydrogeology ; Stakeholders ; Farmers ; Costs
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H048970)
(2 MB)
The karst dolomite aquifers of the North West Province in South Africa are among the most important in the nation. They serve as key water sources for municipal water supply and irrigation, and are also ecologically important in supplying springs that feed important rivers. Over-abstraction and consequent falling groundwater levels jeopardize water supply security, with increasing costs and risks to sustainable development. Better aquifer and conjunctive water management would improve water supply security and lower costs, with wider benefits to many sectors. This GRIPP Case Profile discusses these challenges and management experiences through the examples of two representative North West dolomite aquifers - the Grootfontein and Steenkoppies aquifers. These aquifers are relatively well understood hydrogeologically, and modern South African water law mandates sustainable use. Yet, underperforming collaboration between stakeholders using and managing the aquifers at various levels, and poor support from the national authority have led to an entrenched suboptimal equilibrium where stakeholders are reluctant to change behavior, despite awareness of the negative outcomes. Neither prescriptive local nor top-down organization has been effective. The synthesis argues for prioritized input from a legally mandated and capacitated convening authority (the national Department of Water and Sanitation) to catalyze and support effective local stakeholder groups and other governance initiatives. It calls for a renewed effort by this convening authority and other stakeholders, emphasizing mutually beneficial or “win-win” outcomes.
3 Cobbing, J.; Rose-Innes, C. 2018. Groundwater governance: the case of the Grootfontein Aquifer at Mahikeng, South Africa. Water Alternatives, 11(3):607-622. (Special issue: Local- and National-level Politics of Groundwater Overexploitation).
Groundwater ; Water governance ; Aquifers ; Water levels ; Hydrogeology ; Water supply ; Water institutions ; Legislation ; Corporate culture ; Water user associations ; Farmers ; Political aspects ; Case studies / South Africa / Mahikeng / Grootfontein Aquifer
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H048989)
http://www.water-alternatives.org/index.php/alldoc/articles/vol11/v11issue3/456-a11-3-9/file
https://vlibrary.iwmi.org/pdf/H048989.pdf
https://vlibrary.iwmi.org/pdf/H048989.pdf
(0.84 MB) (860 KB)
This research investigates the case of the Grootfontein Aquifer at Mahikeng. The main aim is to understand why, despite well-established capacity in hydrogeology and progressive groundwater governance rules and practices, groundwater management continues to be poor, with significant deleterious outcomes now and likely in the future. A combination of hydrogeological and institutional analysis reveals a complex set of institutional issues that has inhibited the outcomes anticipated in South African water legislation. The research identifies why conditions are unfavourable for the self-organisation anticipated in the groundwater governance approach that was adopted after 1994, and why actions by specific problem-solving actors are fundamental to the success of this approach. These findings illuminate approaches to economic development that have occurred within the larger public policy context in South Africa since 1994 and find that this has implications for the wider developmental agenda and the political-economic role of the modern African state.
4 Cobbing, J.; Hiller, B. 2019. Waking a sleeping giant: realizing the potential of groundwater in Sub-Saharan Africa. World Development, 122:597-613. [doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2019.06.024]
Groundwater development ; Water resources ; Water use ; Water security ; Sustainability ; Groundwater extraction ; Surface water ; Renewable resources ; Resilience ; Irrigated farming ; Models ; Assessment ; Urban areas ; Rural areas ; Political aspects ; Economic development / Africa South of Sahara
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H049223)
(2.03 MB)
Unlike many global regions, Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has yet to undergo a groundwater revolution. In this paper we confirm that for most SSA countries current groundwater use remains under 5% of national sustainable yield. This is likely to be a constraint on wider economic development and on addressing vulnerabilities to climate change and other shocks. Groundwater use has supported the process of economic structural change in other global regions; hence we derive an empirical model for groundwater use to support economic development, comprising trigger, boom and maturation phases. We identify that the trigger phase depends on political and economic (‘secondary’) factors, in addition to resource characteristics. The boom phase is described as ‘semi anarchic’, while the maturation phase is characterized by slowing abstractions but continued economic benefits. In SSA, we posit that the predominance of limiting secondary factors, coupled with a discourse of caution and focus on the maturation phase (more appropriate for other regions), is constraining the use of groundwater for economic development. We suggest that groundwater has the potential to be a foundational resource to support irrigated agriculture, urban and rural water security, and drought resilience across the region, as it has in many other global regions. We argue that overcoming the current barriers and costs to groundwater development can be offset by the benefits of regional socioeconomic development and increased resilience. In the context of enduring poverty and recurrent humanitarian crises in SSA, this new synthesis of information suggests that such an underutilization of sustainable groundwater is unjustifiable. Stakeholders active in the region should prioritize groundwater development to help facilitate a transition to higher value-added activities and greater regional prosperity and resilience, and ensure that measures are put in place for this to be done sustainably. We conclude with some ideas to help trigger such development in SSA.
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