Building on the work of Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen, this research aims to enhance integration of human development and well-being in environmental assessment through developing a capabilities approach to the practice. The research emphasises the effectiveness and equity imperatives of public participation and highlights the inclusion of appropriate social considerations in environmental decision making. The participatory focus emphasises the potential for decision shaping by stakeholders and decision support for stakeholders to participate meaningfully in environmental assessment. The research develops an evaluative framework for public participation that better considers the capabilities of stakeholders. It explores the potential consilience of the capabilities approach and that of environmental assessment, with emphasis on the principles of justice in participatory decision making. A mixed methods approach explores, tests and evaluates a selection of five South African environmental assessment case studies using an applied capabilities framework. Four main methods are employed, a discourse analysis of environmental assessment reports, a conventional Q methodology, an adapted ranking Q methodology, and a survey using Likert scales. The research findings highlight the relationship between the stakeholder's capability considerations that relate to aspects of their 'ability', 'opportunity' and 'constraints' to participation. The research ranks an array of capabilities and provides insight into the types of capabilities stakeholders value highly when reflecting on their participation experience in environmental decision making. Reflecting on the emergent findings from the cases, the research contributes to the praxis of environmental assessment through theoretical development. The theoretical framework focuses on an individual's participation capabilities as well as a broader consideration of capabilities for practice to increase the realizable opportunities, or freedoms, to choose the kinds of environmental futures that can reasonably be considered as valuable and sustainable. Capability concepts of 'ceilings', 'thresholds' and 'capability sufficiency' are commended as supplementary to existing practice specifications of 'meaningful' participation. The research commends that the capabilities approach has potential to be included as a core part of the training for assessment practitioners. It also concludes that the field of environmental assessment provides a rich empirical context for the development of a more robust sustainability-orientated capabilities approach.

Tourism development theory and practical implementation has evolved over time. In an attempt to find approaches that can minimise the negative impacts of tourism, research has been emphasising efforts to reduce the tensions created by the interaction between the tourism industry, tourists, the environment and host communities. Furthermore, the sustainability debate has framed these discussions on meeting the triple bottom line in adherence to the goals of sustainable development. Much of this research draws on constructivist and realist theories that advocate for tourism as a tool for development. Though this study appreciates the various methodologies recommended for sustainable tourism development, such methodologies lack a holistic approach that can concurrently address a destination's economic, environmental and socio-cultural challenges. This research therefore focuses on integrating approaches to the tourism development process and the implications of such an approach for the triple bottom line. The Mount Elgon region of Kenya comprise two protected areas and one national park, and serves as a case study to better understand the application of an integrated approach. The research is informed by conceptual insights into sustainable tourism that underpin planning. Planning is central to outlining methodologies that can foster tourism in underdeveloped regions. The conceptual framework used in this study proposes the application of three approaches, namely ecosystem management, multistakeholder engagement and geospatial analysis of the tourism resource base. Each of these approaches is aligned to a key positive output of tourism development in protected areas. These outputs, as identified in literature, are biodiversity conservation, socio-cultural enhancement and economic growth. They are central to understanding the significance of the three pillars of sustainability. The research utilised a mixed-method approach that included qualitative analysis by means of policy document review, in-depth and semi-structured interviews, questionnaires, participant observation and participatory rural appraisals. These different data sources were employed to develop an integrative framework for tourism development in the protected areas within the Mount Elgon region. Content analysis was used to study the open-ended data, all the while considering the economic, environmental, and socio-cultural dimensions. The analysis of these three dimensions in relation to the study area revealed many of the challenges that stakeholders in tourism development in the Mount Elgon region face. By exploring these methodological avenues, the research identifies the linkages and overlaps that can be united in an integrative framework. Initial outputs consist of an analysis of the implications of creating integrated approaches and synergising it into an integrative framework for the purpose of developing tourism in protected areas. The findings indicate that integrated approaches can be applied to understand the roles of the primary stakeholders in building or enhancing tourist destinations, local participation, environmental preservation and conservation and market sustainability of tourism enterprise development. The intention is to create a mechanism that will go beyond providing recommendations for Mount Elgon region stakeholders to embrace responsible nature-based tourism, and that allows researchers to adopt this methodology in similar environments and destinations.

Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) is acclaimed as an important paradigm in the sustainable management of water resources. While the logic of IWRM is largely undisputed, it is often criticised for lacking sufficient guidance on its practical implementation. The gap between theory and practice in IWRM is mainly attributed to divergent interpretations of integration and how implementation should be practically pursued in water governance regimes. This research contributes to the on-going discussion around IWRM by investigating an integrated management initiative in the Berg River Catchment, in the Western Cape, South Africa. The Berg River Partnership (BRP) is a collective of government and non-government actors and stakeholders working together in an effort to improve the Berg River. The Berg River is a socially and economically important water system within the region, supporting a number of crucial industries. The Berg River is also under serious environmental stress due to polluted urban runoff, wastewater effluent discharges, agricultural runoff and the presence of alien invasive flora. The Management and Transition Framework (MTF) is adopted in this study as the framework that underpins the structured analysis of the Berg River Partnership, allowing the principles of IWRM to be identified and assessed in the governance structures and processes of the BRP. The study demonstrates how some principles of IWRM are practically implemented within the Berg River Partnership, while confirming some of the limitations of implementing IWRM.

Increased urban development has resulted in increased impervious landcover and the removal of natural vegetation. The continued anthropic modification of the Earth's surface towards an urban state, has had profound effects on the surrounding natural systems (Thompson et al., 2008). Consequently, recent studies have highlighted a strong link between expanding urbanisation and thermal impacts on streams and rivers draining urban catchments (Roa-Espinosa et al., 2003; Arrington, 2003; Herb et al., 2009b). Anthropogenic perturbations such as thermal pollution can adversely disturb the natural thermal regime of a river (Boothe and Bledsoe, 2009). An important source of thermal pollution is thermally enriched stormwater runoff. During a rainfall event, runoff temperature is elevated as it makes contact with, and passes over surfaces which have a large heat storage capacity, such as pavements, roofs and roads (Young et al., 2013). However, the extent of impervious surfaces and resulting thermal pollution produced by them is poorly understood, although it is thought to be a major contributor to stream degradation. Previous research has focused on investigating the thermal effects of removing riparian vegetation. Additionally, a recent research approach has been to develop models of the urban surface-water-atmosphere systems. Finally, research in the field of fresh-water ecology has investigated the effects of temperature on aquatic biota. Water temperature affects all aspects of freshwater ecosystems and plays an important role in regulating physical and biological characteristics of a river (Olsen et al. 2011). Consequently, any anthropogenic modification to temperature can have devastating effects on the ecological functioning of a river and biodiversity of species within the river habitat. Important findings by Young et al. (2013) suggest the need for a detailed study of stormwater temperature changes in relation to rainfall events, at a catchment scale. Furthermore, data is required to show the point source effects of stormwater runoff from impervious surfaces on the temperature of the receiving water body. Therefore, the aim of this study is: To determine the extent and risk of thermal pollution at site specific discharge points, along the Liesbeek River. In order to achieve this aim, variables which cause temperature variations needed to be identified. The primary research method makes use of Thermocron iButton Temperature Loggers. These were placed in four stormwater outlet pipes, which frequently discharge event-based stormwater runoff into the Liesbeek River. Additionally, iButton loggers were placed in the river channel, to provide a reference temperature to compare stormwater discharge temperature. In addition, hourly rainfall and air temperature was acquired from the South AfricanWeather Service (SAWS) and was used in conjunction with the iButton temperature data.

This study identified the need to provide a proof of concept of the use and disaggregation of existing health data in order to study the cross-sectional and spatial distribution of HIV, tuberculosis and noncommunicable disease multimorbidity and the association with socioeconomic disadvantage at a South African, Western Cape Province and urban/intra-urban scale for 2008 and 2012. This study was framed within a health geography context and draws attention to the reality of health variations which are influenced by place-based effects, including the surrounding social, cultural and economic structural factors and mechanisms that, together, constitute the social determinants of health. However, in order to identify and understand these variations in health, access to health data that is able to be disaggregated by key characteristic and spatial scales, is essential. Therefore, this study utilised existing health data from the National Income Dynamics Study, a longitudinal study with a sample of approximately 28 000 people, to perform secondary data analysis using a positivist approach to research. This study found that the coupling of geospatial and health data is able to produce new health information and the graphical representation of data provides unique insights in health variations. Secondly, the burden of disease is not consistent between spatial scales which suggests variations in epidemiological profiles between sub-national geographies, thereby supporting the argument for the need of data disaggregation. Finally, the cross-sectional analysis of this study found multimorbidity to be associated with age, socioeconomic deprivation, obesity and urban areas, while the spatial analysis showed clusters (hot spots) of higher multimorbidity prevalence in parts of KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape, which compared with the socioeconomic disadvantage spatial pattern. Therefore, this study provides an example of the research needed to provide information to support policy improvement and enable the urban planning and public health professions to work together.

The use of genetically modified (GM) crops to resolve food security and poverty issues has been met with controversy and scepticism. The rationale for this research was to highlight the nuanced reasons as to why smallholder farmers are motivated to use agricultural biotechnology. The aim of this study was to explore the uptake of GM maize by South African smallholder farmers in order to contribute towards understanding the implications of agricultural biotechnology in smallholder agriculture. Using the case studies of Hlabisa in KwaZulu-Natal, the objectives were; (i) to investigate the perceived benefits and problems associated with the uptake of GM maize. (ii) to identify which institutional, political, social, and environmental factors influence the choices and decisions made by smallholder farmers to grow GM maize and (iii) to assess how GM maize has affected the well-being of farmers, including social cohesion in the farming communities. The reason Hlabisa was selected for the case study is that it represents one of the few areas in South Africa where GM crops (white GM maize in particular) has been cultivated on a long term basis by smallholder farmers. The necessary information was obtained through the means of a survey in which a number of farmers in the Hlabisa area participated in this regard the participants were; 40 farmers who used white GM maize that possessed the herbicide tolerant and insect resistant traits; seven farmers who used white insect resistant maize and 11 non-GM maize farmers. In addition, five key informant interviews and three focus group discussions were used to collect data. The history of agriculture in the area reveals that modern maize varieties were introduced when agricultural extension officers started operating in the area, beginning with maize seed hybrids in the 1970s. Maize hybrids were framed as better varieties compared to traditional maize in terms of performance. Later, in the 2000s, the seed company Monsanto, and the local department of agriculture introduced various GM maize varieties through farmers' days. This marked the addition of another institution providing so-called expert knowledge about maize farming in Hlabisa. It was argued that relationships between the local department of agriculture, farmers' associations and seed companies were instrumental in encouraging the uptake of GM maize seeds. It is also posited that the GM maize farmers in this study received pseudo-extension and advisory services. These had the agenda of promoting GM maize varieties over traditional varieties, relaying inappropriate agricultural knowledge in the process. There was also a lack of transparency in communicating the potential health and environmental risks associated with GM maize farming. Farmers were unaware that they were legally not allowed to save and exchange the patented GM maize seeds and had to plant refugia to prevent insect resistance. The uptake of GM maize has not significantly affected the seed saving and exchange practices of farmers. Fifty-two percent (24) of the 47 respondents no longer exchanged or saved any of their maize seeds in the study. A chi-squared test for independence indicated that the GM maize farmers were less likely to save and exchange seeds. The non-GM maize farmers were deterred from planting GM crops by the expensive input costs. The issue of affordability of the GM technology also extended to GM farmers, most of whom used social grants to purchase their GM maize seeds. Forty-nine percent of these farmers were in debt due to their uptake of the GM maize. Despite this debt, 74% of respondents claimed that they had perceived an improvement in their quality of life after using white GM maize, as they harvested enough maize to last them to the next planting season and were able to sell surplus maize. However, they only made marginal profits to cover household expenses. There are several conclusions that can be drawn from this study. First, there is a noticeable shift from farmers relying on their own knowledge and experience to using that of seed companies and agricultural extension officers. Second, Seed companies are beginning to fill the gaps left by public extension and advisory institutions and farmers are vulnerable to making uninformed decisions as they are not given relevant information. It is recommended that farmers are given agency through the provision of transparent information. This should be the responsibility of the government and not seed companies with vested interests. The government should try to move away from the idea that farmers need to scale up production through using modern varieties. A better approach would be the strengthening of appropriate support and extension services for South African smallholder farmers who use various maize systems. Lastly there is a need to raise awareness about the social, economic and environmental implications to farmers who elect to use GM seeds.

Climate and environmental change is a phenomenon which is having a significant effect on human-ecological systems around the world. It is predicted to have a detrimental impact on certain groups and populations; among those most at risk are those who have the highest exposure and sensitivity to the climate and environmental changes and the lowest adaptive capacity. This includes coastal fishing communities and therefore necessitates action at a variety of scales in order to build the resilience of these individuals and groups to the predicted changes and their potential impacts. Vulnerability assessments (VAs) have been identified as an effective way to discover who is most vulnerable and to what threats or hazards. This is valuable as assistance can then be provided to the individuals, groups, regions or countries identified as most vulnerable. VAs can be conducted at a variety of scales and can be either quantitative or qualitative. This research project focused on vulnerability assessments conducted at the local level. These community-scale assessments are important as they are able to elicit finer-scale details, identify the greatest hazards and stressors, and conceptualize adaptation strategies that are locally-informed, context specific and targeted towards a specific community. The focus of this research project was to first assess the vulnerability of two coastal communities in South Africa, namely Doringbaai and St Helena Bay, using a suite of mixed methods which included focus group discussions, the review of secondary data, and key informant interviews. Secondly, this project aimed to assess the potential contribution of a 'rapid vulnerability assessment' (RVA) methodology, conducted in the same two coastal fishing communities, to gain information required to identify appropriate adaptation strategies in the context of climate and environmental change. The RVA is conducted as a workshop over a two-day period and may be followed by key informant interviews on the third day, if appropriate and required. This research sought to compare and contrast the information emanating from the RVA workshops with information obtained from the triangulation of mixed methods used in this study with respect to: key threats and stressors faced by the two small-scale fishing communities, identified environmental changes, impacts of these changes on fisher livelihoods, current coping strategies and potential adaptation strategies. Criteria for assessing the performance of the two different approaches were drawn from the literature and systematically documented. The outcome of the assessment showed that the RVA has value as a VA methodology and is able to identify locally relevant, potentially viable adaptation strategies. It is an effective approach for obtaining a good overview of the vulnerabilities of a community and is thus especially useful in under-resourced and data-poor regions. The conclusion was therefore that it is an exceptionally useful tool as a starting point for vulnerability assessments but can be enriched by combining it with other methods such as the review of secondary data, focus group discussions, surveys, questionnaires and key informant interviews. Furthermore, it is recommended that the RVA includes follow-up research and focuses on flexible adaptation strategies.

This research evaluates the effectiveness of Namibia's institutional framework for environmental impact assessment. This effectiveness evaluation consists of two parts: firstly, an evaluation of the extent to which the formal laws, regulations and procedures conform to internationally established norms for EIA systems; and secondly, an evaluation of the implementation of these formal laws, regulations and procedures in Namibian EIA practice. The research utilises a qualitative research approach, which is considered suitable for research that seeks to provide understanding with respect to 'why' and 'how' questions pertaining to policy phenomena. Several qualitative research methods were utilised including the case study method, document analysis and semi-structured interviews. Three cases from two development sectors namely, mining (two cases) and agriculture, were selected with the aid of an experienced Environmental Assessment Practitioner in order to attain the maximum information related to the focus of this research. Two sets of semi-structured interviews were conducted with 21 participants. One set was conducted with 10 individuals, including representatives from both the state and private sector, with significant experience (i.e. more than 10 years) in terms of engagement with Namibia's EIA system. Eleven interview participants, including representatives from both the state and private sector, were interviewed as part of the three selected case studies. The findings reveal that Namibia's EIA system conforms in part to internationally established norms for EIA systems in terms of the formal laws, regulations and procedures, with a few significant omissions. The findings also reveal that the implementation of these laws regulations and procedures in practice, as observed in the three selected cases, is lacking. The environmental authority lacks capacity, both in staffing and expertise. Elements of best practice on the part of proponents and their Environmental Assessment consultants were observed, however improvement in alternatives consideration and public consultation and participation is needed. The main weaknesses relate to the screening of activities that require EIA, implementation and impact monitoring and auditing, the centrality of the findings of the EIA report to decision taking, EIA system monitoring and the environmental assessment of policies, plans and programmes. To conclude, the research findings reveal that Namibia's EIA system has a significant number of weaknesses. This is however consistent with similar research conducted within a developing country context. Further research should focus on seeking to better understand the potential causes for the observed weaknesses.

The commercial production of beef meat is associated with a wide array of environmental impacts, and is itself very sensitive to environmental conditions. Water in particular is a critical environmental resource and the commercial success of an agri-business is closely tied to reliance on fresh water resources. In an economic sector that is increasingly faced with competition for resources as well as negative public opinion about environmental impacts, the management of water-related risks and impacts is essential to ensure business resilience and sustainability. Global trends in animal production are causing the environmental problems to become more harmful, and intensive animal production is being separated from traditional crop farming systems where manure could be used as a fertilizer to replenish soil nutrients. There is a spatial disconnect in the production value chain brought about by commercial trends. An on-site water efficiency approach to water resources management of an agri-business does not enable it to evaluate value chain water-related risks, or its' own contribution to sustainable water use in the catchments where raw materials are produced and production wastes are distributed. The question of sustainable water use within the production value chain of beef meat is not solved with an on-site efficiency approach to water resources management because the approach is inadequate in evaluating the freshwater environmental impact, or in managing water-related business risks of the whole beef production value chain. It is argued that a systems approach is more credible because it allows a beef cattle feedlot enterprise to evaluate freshwater impacts across the production value chain and will enable a feedlot to transition towards a sustainable value chain water resources management model The Water Footprint of food, goods and services is a volumetric expression of the water that is consumed during the production process. Unlike water use, the water footprint refers to water that is imbedded into a product (also referred to as virtual water) or otherwise made unavailable for further use within a catchment, province or country through pollution dilution. The Water Footprint Network developed the Water Footprint Assessment and describes three types of WF: the green water footprint refers to evaporated water, typically in the form of rainwater. The blue water footprint refers to water that is abstracted from a resource and delivered to the point of use, for example in the case of irrigation from a river, borehole or dam. The grey water footprint is a volumetric expression of the amount of fresh water required to dilute chemical substances to a safe or acceptable concentration in the natural environment. A Water Footprint Assessment (WFA) was undertaken at a beef cattle feedlot in Gauteng, South Africa. The WFA focused on the Bovine WF of the 4-month winter- and summer finishing periods that cattle spend at the feedlot. The second focus was on the monthly grey WF of waste management activities at the feedlot. The purpose of the study was to determine how the application of a WFA would enable an agri-business to transition from an on-site approach to water resources management, to a value-chain systems approach to sustainable water resource management.

Land degradation in drylands, remains a highly contentious issue. Broadly speaking, land degradation may be defined as undesirable changes in the state of land from productive to unproductive due to natural or human made factors