Addressing Water Insecurity with a Greywater Hydroponics System in South Africa

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carson Edgerton ◽  
Alex Estrada ◽  
Katya Fairchok ◽  
Michele T. Parker ◽  
Andrew Jezak ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Water Insecurity

scholarly journals Water Rights in a Time of Fragility: An Exploration of Contestation and Discourse around Cape Town’s “Day Zero” Water Crisis

Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (22) ◽  
pp. 3247
Author(s):  
Jackie Dugard
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Water Rights ◽  
Water Security ◽  
Interesting Case ◽  
Water Insecurity ◽  
Middle Income ◽  
The World ◽  
Legal Frameworks ◽  
Water Scarce ◽  
The Right

South Africa is an interesting case study on the right to water. It is an upper-middle income country with a history and current reality of extreme racialised inequality, including the water services sphere. It is water scarce, and during 2018, Cape Town was expected to be the first major metropolitan city in the world to run out of water. South Africa has one of the most progressive constitutions in the world, which incorporated socio-economic rights including the right to water as explicitly justiciable long before the international right to water was recognised. However, despite clear water-security and water-equity fault lines on the one hand and conducive legal frameworks on the other hand, there has been relatively little water rights contestation in post-apartheid South Africa. It is this paradox and, in particular, how it played out in the clear case of water insecurity in Cape Town’s “Day Zero” crisis that are the subjects of examination in this article. Aiming to make an original contribution to the scholarship on the “Day Zero” crisis by exploring it from the perspective of interlocutors and those affected by it, this article also hopes to contribute towards a better understanding of the nature and application of water rights more broadly.

scholarly journals Climate change and water insecurity in rural uMkhanyakude District Municipality: an assessment of coping strategies for rural South Africa

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hosea Olayiwola Patrick
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
South Africa ◽  
Rural Communities ◽  
Coping Strategies ◽  
Policy Issue ◽  
Water Security ◽  
Water Insecurity ◽  
Rural South ◽  
Kwazulu Natal ◽  
Rural South Africa

Abstract The vulnerability of Africa to climate change extremes and eventual impacts is extremely high due to the weak coping strategies prevalent in the continent. The peculiarity of South Africa to these vulnerabilities, especially for water security, is an issue of socioeconomic and policy issue. Based on the premises of human security, the study assesses the coping strategies of rural communities in South Africa, focusing on uMkhanyakude District Municipality, KwaZulu-Natal province, given the effects of climate change-induced water scarcity on the area. The study employed a multilayered descriptive mixed method triangulation approach. It focused specifically on the connection between water and climate change and the adopted everyday vertical and horizontal coping strategies. The findings revealed a strong correlation between the behavioral and traditional coping strategies in the study area, water depletion/scarcity, and climate change. It also showed that government institutions are reactionary in their response to climate change-induced impacts. The study, therefore, recommends a pre-resilience mechanism that makes institutions and individuals proactive rather than adopting a reactionary post-resilience strategy in response to the effects of climate change-induced water security.

scholarly journals Stormwater harvesting: Improving water security in South Africa’s urban areas

2017 ◽  
Vol Volume 113 (Number 1/2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lloyd Fisher-Jeffes ◽  
Kirsty Carden ◽  
Neil P. Armitage ◽  
Kevin Winter ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
South Africa ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Water Security ◽  
Environmental Benefits ◽  
Aquifer Recharge ◽  
Real Time Control ◽  
Water Supplies ◽  
Water Insecurity ◽  
Stormwater Harvesting

Abstract The drought experienced in South Africa in 2016 – one of the worst in decades – has left many urbanised parts of the country with limited access to water, and food production has been affected. If a future water crisis is to be averted, the country needs to conserve current water supplies, reduce its reliance on conventional surface water schemes, and seek alternative sources of water supply. Within urban areas, municipalities must find ways to adapt to, and mitigate the threats from, water insecurity resulting from, inter alia, droughts, climate change and increasing water demand driven by population growth and rising standards of living. Stormwater harvesting (SWH) is one possible alternative water resource that could supplement traditional urban water supplies, as well as simultaneously offer a range of social and environmental benefits. We set out three position statements relating to how SWH can: improve water security and increase resilience to climate change in urban areas; prevent frequent flooding; and provide additional benefits to society. We also identify priority research areas for the future in order to target and support the appropriate uptake of SWH in South Africa, including testing the viability of SWH through the use of real-time control and managed aquifer recharge.

Contraction spells economic doldrums for South Africa

2015 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Monetary Policy ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Water Insecurity ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The World ◽  
Wage Negotiation ◽  
Us Monetary Policy

Significance The World Bank in its August 17 Economic Update warned about the downside risks to South Africa posed by anticipated US monetary policy tightening and cooling Chinese growth, especially given domestic structural weaknesses, including labour unrest, electricity shortages and growing fiscal imbalances. Impacts Future tax increases will probably not include a mining windfall tax, due to government concerns about the sector's future. Water insecurity due to shortages and degraded infrastructure will rise in prominence among the risks concerning companies. Strikes in the gold sector are probable, unless state mediation breaks the current wage negotiation deadlock.

scholarly journals Gendered Water Insecurity: A Structural Equation Approach for Female Headed Households in South Africa

Water ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 2491
Author(s):  
Saul Ngarava ◽  
Leocadia Zhou ◽  
Nomakhaya Monde
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Water Treatment ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
Principal Component ◽  
Household Survey ◽  
Water Access ◽  
Wealth Status ◽  
Water Insecurity ◽  
Female Headed Households ◽  
Dynamic Relationships

Intricacies between women and water are central to achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Gender equality and women empowerment is a key driver in ending hunger and poverty as well as improve water security the study sought to identify and provide pathways through which female-headed households were water insecure in South Africa. Secondary data collected during the 2016 General Household Survey (GHS) was utilised, with a sample of 5928 female-headed households. Principal Component Analysis and Structural Equation Modelling were used to analyse the data. The results show dynamic relationships between water characteristics and water treatment. There were also associations between water access and wealth status of the female-headed households. Association was also found between water access and water treatment as well as between wealth status and water treatment. The study concludes that there are dynamic relationships in water insecurity (exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity) for female-headed households in South Africa. The study recommends that a multi-prong approach is required in tackling exposures, sensitivities and adaptive capacities to water insecurity. This should include capacity–building and empowering women for wealth generation, improve access to water treatment equipment as well as prioritising improvement of infrastructure that brings piped and safe water to female-headed households.

Time and Latitude in South Africa

1972 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 27-38
Author(s):  
J. Hers
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
Astronomical Observations ◽  
Royal Observatory ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Astronomical Determination ◽  
Limited Accuracy ◽  
Better Than

In South Africa the modern outlook towards time may be said to have started in 1948. Both the two major observatories, The Royal Observatory in Cape Town and the Union Observatory (now known as the Republic Observatory) in Johannesburg had, of course, been involved in the astronomical determination of time almost from their inception, and the Johannesburg Observatory has been responsible for the official time of South Africa since 1908. However the pendulum clocks then in use could not be relied on to provide an accuracy better than about 1/10 second, which was of the same order as that of the astronomical observations. It is doubtful if much use was made of even this limited accuracy outside the two observatories, and although there may – occasionally have been a demand for more accurate time, it was certainly not voiced.

Combining Professional Interests and Travel: People to People Citizen Ambassador Program

2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 47-54
Author(s):  
Alex Johnson ◽  
Amanda Hitchins
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Health Education ◽  
Communication Disorders ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
Speech Language Pathologists ◽  
Exchange Program

Abstract This article summarizes a series of trips sponsored by People to People, a professional exchange program. The trips described in this report were led by the first author of this article and include trips to South Africa, Russia, Vietnam and Cambodia, and Israel. Each of these trips included delegations of 25 to 50 speech-language pathologists and audiologists who participated in professional visits to learn of the health, education, and social conditions in each country. Additionally, opportunities to meet with communication disorders professionals, students, and persons with speech, language, or hearing disabilities were included. People to People, partnered with the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA), provides a meaningful and interesting way to learn and travel with colleagues.

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