Fire and water : a transdisciplinary investigation of water governance in the lower Sundays River Valley, South Africa

Clifford-Holmes, Jai Kumar

Title: Fire and water : a transdisciplinary investigation of water governance in the lower Sundays River Valley, South Africa
Creator: Clifford-Holmes, Jai Kumar
ThesisAdvisor: Palmer, Tally
ThesisAdvisor: De Wet, Chris
ThesisAdvisor: Slinger, Jill
Subject: Lower Sundays River Valley Municipality (Eastern Cape, South Africa)
Subject: Water -- Law and legislation -- South Africa
Subject: Water-supply -- Management
Subject: Municipal services -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
Subject: Fire extinction -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
Subject: Integrated water development -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
Subject: Water quality management -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
Subject: Water resources development -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
Date: 2015
Type: Thesis
Type: Doctoral
Type: PhD
Identifier: vital:6047
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1017870
Description: The implementation of water policy and the integrated management of water face multiple challenges in South Africa (SA), despite the successes of post-apartheid government programmes in which some significant equity, sustainability and efficiency milestones have been met. This study uses a series of intervention processes into municipal water service delivery to explore the context, constraints, and real-world messiness in which local water authorities operate. The equitable provision of drinking water by local government and the collaborative management of untreated water by ‘water user associations’ are two sites of institutional conflict that have been subjected to broad ‘turnaround’ and ‘transformation’ attempts at the national level. This thesis seeks to explore and understand the use of transdisciplinary research in engaging local water authorities in a process of institutional change that increases the likelihood of equitable water supply in the Lower Sundays River Valley (LSRV). Fieldwork was conducted as part of a broader action research process involving the attempted ‘turnaround’ of the Sundays River Valley Municipality (SRVM) between 2011 and 2014. A multi-method research approach was employed, which drew on institutional, ethnographic, and systems analyses within an evolving, transdisciplinary methodology. In the single case study research design, qualitative and quantitative data were collected via participant observation, interviews and documentary sources. Analytical methods included system dynamics modelling and an adapted form of the ethnographic tool of ‘thick description’, which were linked in a governance analysis. Government interventions into the SRVM failed to take account of the systemic complexity of the municipal operating environment, the interactions of which are described in this study as the ‘modes of failure’ of local government. These modes included the perpetual ‘firefighting’ responses of municipal officials to crises, and the simultaneous underinvestment in, and over-extension of, water supply infrastructure, which is a rational approach to addressing current water shortages when funds are unavailable for maintenance, refurbishment, or the construction of new infrastructure. The over-burdening of municipalities with technocratic requirements, the presence of gaps in the institutional arrangements governing water supply in the LSRV, and the lack of coordination in government interventions are analysed in this study, with policy recommendations resulting. The primary contribution of this study is in providing a substantively-contextualised case study that illustrates the value of systemic, engaged, extended, and embedded transdisciplinary research.
Format: 581 leaves, pdf
Publisher: Rhodes University, Faculty of Science, Institute for Water Research
Language: English
Rights: Clifford-Holmes, Jai Kumar

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Clifford-Holmes, Jai Kumar (Dr)

RU Institute for Water Research, including the Unilever Centre for Environmental Water Quality (IWR)

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