published_or_final_version / Urban Planning / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning

published_or_final_version / Urban Planning / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Science, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. 30 October 2014. / The reporting of non-financial data has steadily increased over the past three decades and there is evidence that including social and environmental indicators in the annual report is correlated with improved environmental performance of listed companies. The annual reports of a selection of 82 JSE-listed companies, including the full JSE Top 40, were analysed for mentions of the natural environment for the reporting periods of 2010 and 2012. The introduction of the King III principles by the JSE occurred between these two periods, providing an opportunity to assess the impacts that this move had on annual reporting. Attention was paid to mentions in the leadership reviews by the Chairmen and the CEOs, presence of empirical environmental data, environmental KPIs and the manner in which these data were presented and discussed in the report. In addition, a survey asking qualitative details of company reporting policy was conducted among the staff members responsible for environmental reporting of these companies. The standard and sophistication of environmental reporting varied widely across the sample, with Top 40 companies generally reporting better than non-Top 40 companies. Primary industries were more likely to provide empirical data than service industries and only agricultural industries appeared concerned with the manner in which changes in the natural environment could affect their business. There remains a wide variation in the type and detail of environmental reporting across the sample with very little evidence that the data, as reported, play a meaningful role in the decisions of either management or investors.

This dissertation offers an examination of the concept of sustainability, via an ethnography of geothermal life in the district of Puna on Hawaiʻi Island. In the midst of global discourse on climate change, population growth, and energy needs, ‘sustainability’ brands a remarkable number of initiatives to signify a thoughtful connection with earth, and concern with the continuation of all of existence. Close examination of what sustainable measures have meant for life in the district of Puna on Hawaiʻi Island, however, reveal the ties of discourses on and enactments of ‘sustainability’ and ‘sustainable’ living to the sustenance of market, colonial inheritance and renewability, and the manufacture of narratives that erase forms of existence—human and nonhuman, including and especially the geological. Examinations of the notion of ‘sustainability’ alongside currents of Kanaka ʻŌiwi inquiries into earth’s heat element and its relations, and settler experiences of geothermal activity, reveal the pliability of material Natures in the face of human desire, the graceless scaffolding of lives under Late Liberalism, and the structure of Late Liberal biases as suspended in love with the biontological—those forms deemed “Life.” In the dissertation I examine engagement points between literatures on Development, Indigeneity, and Space, in particular what they reveal about possible relationships with land and resource, as well as literatures on Foucauldian biopower and what Elizabeth Povinelli (2016) has termed “geontopower”—increasingly exposed arrangements of power as divisions between Life and Nonlife in the Late Liberal period—to think through the commodification of rock and earth, and the spaces between things where the possibility for hulihia (overturning) continues to exist.

A variety of energy models and tools have been used for an comprehensive analysis of the complex energy systems and the design of pathway to sustainable energy world. This thesis analyzes three interesting problems in the electricity sector by developing and using suitable energy models. Chapter 2 investigates how to incorporate demand responsiveness for policy analysis in the electricity sector using a least-cost model. This study develops its own least-cost model which includes some characteristics for two important policies in the electricity sector, and suggests an iterative approach for incorporating the demand response to price change under new policy. Based on a case study, the state of Georgia, this chapter shows the effects of including demand response on the evaluation of policy. Chapter 3 is about new technology adoption pathways in the electric power system. In this chapter, by investigating the related status of policies and specifications of electric vehicles and wind power technologies in the U.S., several adoption pathways of the technologies in the U.S. eastern interconnection have been developed. This study develops four-serial models for the estimation of future economic and environmental impacts of the technologies' penetration. The results show that the total greenhouse gas emissions of the entire energy system do not substantially decrease even with a high level of electric vehicle adoption. The combination of two technologies, even more with appropriate policies, can notably decrease the total greenhouse gas emissions. Chapter 4 is a study about demand response programs, particularly optional time-based rates, for residential customers. This chapter analyzes the main reason that the participation of the current programs is low even though the programs have benefits. This study investigates two policy tools, a subsidy for flexible residential demand and a shared-savings mechanism based on consumption pattern changes, and examines the implementation of the tools and their potential to overcome the current inefficient operation.

Social forestry is a participatory approach to managing forest resources that attempts to reconcile a range of ecological, commercial and social objectives. Its emergence in the last decade signals a recognition of the failure of development programmes imposed by government directive and of the need for forests to support increasingly impoverished local populations while supplying timber for international markets. Social forestry in Bangladesh has been planned and implemented through the combined efforts of the Bangladeshi government, international aid donors, especially the Asian Development Bank, and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). The weight of development organizations in this coalition led to an explicit commitment to recognizing the role of women in such projects, both as the target group most dependent on forest resources for domestic needs and, for that same reason, as the group most knowledgeable about the forest's capacity for meeting local needs. / All the components of Social Forestry Programs were examined in two different villages. One village, Shakipur, is close to the local administrative center, while the other, Barsharchala, is more isolated. In both cases, the government had alienated itself from the local population through an aggressive approach to land appropriation. It therefore entrusted popular mobilization and credit distribution to Proshika, a national NGO. Four major conclusions emerge from this research: (1) benefits to women and other target groups have been marginal at best; (2) development planning treats village populations as largely homogenous, ignoring the existence of entrenched power holders who are able to capture the benefits of these programmes; (3) planners also ignore the specificity of local patterns of land ownership, a key factor in the success of participatory projects; and (4) "bottom up" development is in danger of failing because many areas lack a capacity for spontaneous popular mobilization.

This guided research report presents the findings of a study on how conservancies perceive the impact of the ward committee on their participation. The research was conducted with the objective of gaining insight into participation in sustainable development in Ward 5 in Knysna Municipality. The study was qualitative and involved a mix of methods including interviews, a survey and documentary review. The analysis shows that the impact of the ward committee on participation is indirect, in that there is a rigid approach to participation by the municipality which focusses only on participation through the ward committees. A change in paradigm that will extend the participation space and accommodate changing media in communication is recommended. The research results will be shared with all the stakeholders in this particular participation relationship, with the view to enhancing participation in sustainable development issues in the ward.

The rapid growth of population and climate change has subjected our civil infrastructures to high load demands and fast aging or degradation over time. Temperature plays a key role in the performance of the aging infrastructure in form of thermal stress and cracking, temperature-induced material aging and degradation, temperature-dependent deformation, and softening. Thus, the importance of predicting the consequent behavior of the infrastructures under environmental conditions becomes imperative. This research characterizes three infrastructure surface materials, namely asphalt pavement, solar panels, and phase change materials (PCM), models the efficacy of modifiers and novel methods to improve their performance and uses these materials in the design and testing of thermal management systems for different applications. The connection between these materials is the thermal management in pavement overlays, which can be extended to other infrastructure surfaces. Asphalt pavement modified with recycled crumb rubber (CR) is a sustainable way to reuse the millions of tires that used to end in landfills. However, the ultraviolet (UV) rays from the sun have been shown to adversely affect the asphalt’s performance in the long run. The severe photo-oxidation can cause changes in the volatile components of the asphalt and result in hardening, aging, and thermal cracks in it. The effect of UV rays on the rubber-modified asphalt may be even more complex due to the presence of crumb rubber particles and their chemical/physical incompatibility and changes in the glass transition. In order to examine these effects, a PG 64-22 is modified with two percentages of 16.6 wt.% and 20.0 wt.% crumb rubber. Results show the specific heat capacities increase with UV aging with 16.6% having the highest value. The addition of the rubber particles does not change the chemical composition of the binder as confirmed by the elemental analysis. However, after UV exposure, peaks associated with carbonyl and sulfoxide are observed, proving that the rubber-modified binder is subject to photo-oxidation as well. The 16.6. wt.% shows the best performance against aging with the lowest sulfoxide index and the highest aliphatic index. Another advantage of adding crumb rubber particles is the formation of a matrix due to the crosslinking of the rubber particles with the binder after being heated, as approved by microscopic images. The carbon nanotubes (CNT) are used to modify the asphalt binder to improve its rheological characteristics while also enhancing the thermal conductivity of the mixture to facilitate the transfer of heat to the surface. In this study, two samples of 3% and 6% multi walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) are prepared using a foaming technology. Foaming the asphalt via water lowers its viscosity and temperature resulting in the saving of the base material and consumed energy while increasing the coating of the aggregates. The results show the CNTs can improve the thermal conductivity of the foamed binder by almost 2X while not negatively affect its rheology. For the other end of the thermal management system, a new hydronic system is introduced for the building integrated photovoltaics and thermal (BIPVT) silicon module that acts for the dual objectives of collecting heat to be used for the thermal management of the pavement and controlling the surface temperature of the solar module itself for the optimal efficiency under different operating conditions. The BIPVT panel with different flow rates of 100 to 600 ml/min were tested for the effectiveness of the cooling design. The results from experiments and simulations show that at 200 ml/min, an optimal balance for the performance of the panel is achieved to not only reduce the temperature of the panel from 88°C to 65°C, but also generate a partially heated water outlet of 37°C (compared with the 23°C inlet) that can be used for the hot water system of the building, or as the inlet feed to the hydronic cooling/heating pavement system. In addition, the BIPVT design proves to restore the power of the solar module by 24.6% at a 200 ml/min flow rate, as confirmed from the I-V curves. Finally, the feasibility study of converting the waste animal fat to a phase change material (PCM) is explored. In PCMs, the high latent heat characteristics are used to store or release energy during the phase change. The use of PCMs can significantly lower the temperature variation of buildings and the consequent energy use. While most common PCMs are paraffin-based and too expensive for large scale applications, a bio-based and more economic alternative could be the key to its vast use in infrastructure systems. However, more research is needed to achieve an animal fat PCM with high latent heat values. In this study, characterizing the raw fat shows a ~20% saturated content. After hydrolysis, the saturated portion has been increased to 65%, but the improvement in the latent is not significant. However, after separation of the fatty acids by use of crystallization, the resulting fully saturated fatty acids (palmitic and stearic acids) show a 3.5X increase in the value of the latent heat, increasing it from ~55 J/g for free fatty acids to ~195 J/g for saturated fatty acids. The promising results of the high latent heat values make the current bio-based PCM a good alternative that needs to be further explored in the future to be used for applications in buildings and BIPVT panels. Overall, the results of this PhD study provide a comprehensive understanding of materials and systems for thermal management of asphalt pavements and enable the design and development of durable self-heated pavements, which can be immediately extended to other infrastructure applications such as wall panels, net-zero buildings, and solar panels.

Economic and ecological processes interact with one another over both spatial and temporal dimensions.This dissertation explores four socio-ecological systems where space crucially matters for both economic and ecological outcomes. In the first chapter, a windborne chemical dictates the diffusion in space of a new agricultural technology. The second chapter dissects the notion of landscape complexity to find which of its components matter for the intensity of insect pressure in agriculture, and thus the use of insecticides. In the third chapter, the location of participants in an environmental program seeking to curb deforestation points to additionality problems and anticipates the lack of measurable effects of the program. Knowing where crops are grown and temperatures less well-suited for their thriving is key to identifying in chapter four the effects of weather fluctuations on asylum applications into the European Union. The spatial dimension tends to be hard to apprehend and overlooked, but those four pieces together stress that space matters in the study of sustainable development.

Includes bibliographical references. / The purpose of this dissertation is to assess and evaluate various water level management options for the upgrading of Olushandja Dam in northern Namibia within the framework of the environmental impact assessment carried out for the project. This will enable the Namibian Department of Water Affairs (DWA) to improve their management of the dam for the benefit of the local communities and consumers in the Oshana Water Region (Figure 5 . 1). The dam has been in existence since 1975 and is part of the Calueque-Olushandja inter-basin water transfer scheme. A pipeline and a series of canals links Calueque Dam , on the Cunene River in Angola , with Olushandja Dam in Namibia and the urban areas to the east and south. In order to provide for the expected increase in water requirements from agricultural and rural development the scheme is presently being upgraded. An environmental impact assessment (EIA) was initiated in 1994 by the DWA as a requirement of the Dutch Government who are funding the project. Biophysical studies were undertaken by staff from the DWA and private consultants from Windhoek. The socio-economic study was carried out by a study team from the Department of Environmental and Geographical Science, University of Cape Town, in association with a consultant from the University's Environmental Evaluation Unit (EEU). The EEU was appointed to compile a full EIA based on the findings of the specialist reports. This report is expected to be completed by October 1995.