Framework for local government to implement integrated water resource management linked to water service delivery
- Authors: Haigh, Eliria H , Fox, Helen E , Davies-Coleman, Heather D
- Date: 2010
- Language: English
- Type: text , Article
- Identifier: vital:7097 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1012440
- Description: The Water Services Act (No. 8 of 1997) of South Africa states that water service delivery is the responsibility of local government as Water Services Authorities. The principal legal responsibility is to complete a Water Services Development Plan (WSDP) every 5 years with annual review. The WSDP encapsulates all the responsibilities and tasks required in water service delivery. However, it does not spell out local government’s role in water resource protection or its responsibilities as far as integrated water resource management is concerned. It is well known in South Africa that there is a challenging level of inadequate capacity in technical and administrative skills in local government to adequately fulfil water service delivery. This paper highlights the consequences of this incapacity for municipalities and their difficulties in fulfilling their responsibilities as service providers. A framework is provided within which improvements can be brought about, with guidance on how to engage in the practice of integrated water resource management (IWRM) in the context of the legal framework for water services. The additional tasks and changes required to practise IWRM are set in the context of the WSDP. The framework provides a guide for a municipality to first accomplish an adequate WSDP, and then to gradually implement IWRM. A discussion on the skills needed to accomplish, firstly, a comprehensive WSDP, and secondly, IWRM, is included.
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- Date Issued: 2010
Applied aquatic ecotoxicology sub-lethal methods, whole effluent testing and communication
- Authors: Palmer, Carolyn G , Muller, Nikite W J , Davies-Coleman, Heather D
- Date: 2004
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , report
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/437785 , vital:73409 , ISBN 1-77005-252-6 , https://wrcwebsite.azurewebsites.net/wp-content/uploads/mdocs/1245-1-041.pdf
- Description: This report is the most recent in a series of WRC reports on the development of the capacity to undertake ecotoxicological research in South Africa. The development followed the following tines: • Recognition, as a result of the Kruger National Park Rivers Research Programme, that there were virtually no data on the water quality requirements of South African macroin vertebrates. • Development of the capacity to undertake experimental tolerance testing using riverine invertebrates in artificial stream systems. • Investigation of the salt tolerances, and whole effluent toxicity responses, of both standard toxicity test taxa and South African macroinverte-brates. • Development of both lethal and sub-lethal measures. • Application of re-search results to the development of methods for water quality within ecological Reserve determinations, and the implementation of the National Water Act (NWA) (No 36. of 1998) and National Water Resource Strategy (NWRS). The WRC is com-mitted to funding research that underpins the implementation of the NWA and the NWRS. Over the past 12 years it became clear that there would not be a rapid up-take of ecotoxicology research results in South Africa, and that it was important to place ecotoxicology in the wider context of water quality. From this recognition, the concept of Environmental Water Quality evolved.
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- Date Issued: 2004
The development of a toxicity database using freshwater macroinvertebrates, and its application to the protection of South African water resources
- Authors: Palmer, Carolyn G , Muller, Wilhelmine J , Gordon, Andrew K , Scherman, Patricia A , Davies-Coleman, Heather D , Pakhomova, L , de Kock, E
- Date: 2004
- Language: English
- Type: text , Article
- Identifier: vital:7073 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1009528
- Description: There is a growing international trend towards the protection of freshwater resources from pollution by imposing instream guidelines and specified waste-discharge conditions. Current methods for devising freshwater quality guidelines are based on species sensitivity distributions (SSDs) that are used to identify pollutant concentrations, ensuring the protection of a modelled percentage of species (95% protection is a common goal). SSDs are derived from the toxicity test results of as many taxa as possible for each polluting substance. Waste-discharge licences can be for single substances, specified in terms of chemical concentrations, and derived in conjunction with instream guidelines; or for complex mixtures, specified in terms of toxic units. In both cases toxicity test results are the core data used. The emphasis on SSDs calls into question the species constituting the test populations. It is likely that SSDs based in part on the responses of local organisms will achieve superior site-specific ecological protection. Until the early 1990s, there were very few data on the tolerances of South African freshwater organisms. In the intervening decade, the Unilever Centre for Environmental Water Quality at Rhodes University has developed a toxicity database that, to date, records the responses of 21 South African freshwater taxa to 26 single-substance pollutants or mixtures. This is the most comprehensive database of South African toxicity responses available and has been used in the drawing up of methods and guidelines to protect water resources. This paper aims to make these data available and to describe applications of the data using selected case studies.
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- Date Issued: 2004