Includes bibliographical references / This thesis investigates water risk in small-to medium-sized agro-processing companies and the public sector. Global interest in water management from the private sector has led to an increase in the development of water risk tools that are available to companies. Not only has the number of tools increased, but also the quality and form of these tools has been refined. Water risks are complex and extensive, and cannot be managed alone. Private sector interest in partnership and collaboration with other actors in managing water risk has increased as a result. The principal aim of this thesis is to investigate and explain the idea of shared water risk, using an adaptive theory process within a case study to investigate the understanding and knowledge of water risks among public and private actors. The study is informed by an assumption that if private and public interests are aware of the collective risks within a catchment, then sustainability of those business enterprises and public services, along with the protection and conservation of water resources may be possible. The case study is located in Grabouw and the Elgin Valley in the Theewaterskloof Local Municipality, Western Cape, South Africa. Private sector actors include agro-processing industries in the region, while the public sector includes local municipality officials and water resources management institutions such as the Catchment Management Agency and the Water Users Association. A conceptual framework of water risk and a sharing typology was developed from an analysis of interviews and the use of secondary sources of documents on the hydrology and socio-economic information on the catchment. The conceptual framework identifies the different water risks of the private and public sector, while the sharing typology indicates the progression of knowledge and understanding of private and public sector water risks, recognising that sharing does not take place in a single form. The framework and the typology together are intended to integrate an understanding of the theory and empirical data. Refinement of the framework and typology found that shared risk is especially pertinent in situations where systemic water risks affect the management of water and where that risk cannot be managed by individual companies or public sector authorities alone. The conceptual framework and typology identify the private and public sector exposure to risks, enabling actors to understand the scale and form of the respective risks in each sector. Where risks are not shared, the process of investigating the knowledge and understanding of risks helps to identify the complexity of the system. Contributions of this thesis include the use of risk as a common language to help bring together diverse sectors, especially when participatory decision-making is required. Not only the technical aspects of water supply and sanitation, but the wider social and environmental factors need to be considered as well. Understanding water security as a risk enables a wider and more diverse stakeholder group. The thesis concludes that collaboration and adaptive management need to be informed by knowledge and understanding of the complexity of risks within the catchment by multiple stakeholders.

Dryland farmers in southern Africa operate under harsh conditions; infertile soils, erratic rainfall regimes, sub-optimal input levels etc. Crop yields have generally been low, negatively affecting food security and livelihoods. Climate change is anticipated to aggravate these already existing challenges. In the recent past, a wide range of studies has sought to understand how climate change will affect crop production. However, there are only few detailed localised studies that focus on understanding climate change impacts and adaptation under heterogeneous conditions that dryland farmers in southern Africa operate. This study sought to understand how climate change will affect food crop production in southern Africa's drylands and to provide insight on the potential of on-farm agronomic management strategies for adaptation. The study focused on three locations representing some of the agro-ecological conditions of southern Africa i.e. Big Bend in Swaziland (low altitude, hot and dry), Mohale's Hoek in Lesotho (high altitude, cool and wet and dry), and Lilongwe in Malawi (mid altitude, wet with moderate temperatures). The study was performed largely using a climate-crop model simulation approach supported by a review of similar approaches in the region, data collected from reported agricultural experimental trials, regional experts, downscaled climate projections (using up to 9 GCMs) and surveys.

Natural resource governance in Africa is characterised by increased commercialisation of natural resources, the promotion of community-based natural resource management, and a re-appropriation of traditional authorities and customary law as evidenced by their inclusion in statutory frameworks. Yet, knowledge of the interaction and effect of these multiple governance arrangements on local communities is limited. Using the lens of devil’s claw (Harpagophytum spp.), a commercial non-timber forest product, this research examines the interface between statutory, traditional and comanagement governance systems; the broader historical and political-economic contexts that shape governance systems; livelihood and sustainability outcomes at the local level; and the role of power in determining environmental, social and economic outcomes. The research adopted a case study method with three study sites selected in the Zambezi Region, Namibia – Balyerwa Conservancy, Lubuta Community Forest and Sachinga. All rural communal areas, selection was based on their distinct governance arrangements, including a range of traditional and co-management institutions, development interventions and statutory regulation. Qualitative methods were used and included questionnaires, focus group discussions, interviews, participant observation and documentary evidence. An institutional mode of analysis and a political ecology approach were applied. Theoretical perspectives to inform the research were drawn from discourses on governance, institutions, political ecology, power and access. The novelty in using a political ecology approach to develop adaptive governance theory was to move beyond understandings of the conscious mechanisms of institutions embodied in their structure, to a more nuanced understanding of socially-embedded institutions and the unconscious mechanisms that also determine social and environmental outcomes. The empirical knowledge gained from this research shows that both structural and socially-embedded institutional constraints are hindering the objectives of non-timber forest product governance. The results of this research affirm that governance is hybridising and that dichotomised descriptions of governance as customary or statutory, self-organising or hierarchical, do not capture the complexity of these evolving fusions of governance at the local level. Where a multiplicity of institutions existed at the local level, the role of the State was diminished and where co-management was in place, communities benefited from non-governmental organisation support which enabled greater benefits for harvesters and more sustainable practices. However, power was not restructured under such arrangements and differentials in access, knowledge, decision-making and benefits remained. Where co-management was not in place, harvesters were not supported in their harvesting activities and were most vulnerable to exploitation by traditional leaders and buyers. This exacerbated competition over the resource and unsustainable harvesting was more prevalent. Devil’s claw was used as a traditional medicine by some members of these communities but did not hold significant socio-cultural value. Customary systems of management for devil’s claw were therefore weak or absent and oversight of the resource was perceived to be the jurisdiction of the State. Statutory regulation of devil’s claw was however found to be ineffective; when in place, the State perceived the co-management institutions to be responsible for monitoring and evaluation. The implementation of quotas, traceability and better pricing from exporters exerted a greater influence than regulation in promoting sustainability. In the absence of non-governmental support and exporters adhering to quotas, unsustainable harvesting prevailed. A central finding is that alteration, the bending or breaking of rules by local communities, is a strategy to cope with economic precariousness that is inflicted by broader political-economic conditions. This affirms the need for an alternative economic logic to be examined that incorporates non-timber forest products into diverse agroforestry production systems that stimulate markets within rather than external to localities and draws on existing cultural practices and preferences to shape landscapes and economies in more holistic, equitable ways. The research concludes that benefits for harvesters and the sustainability of devil’s claw are currently hindered by institutional complexity, overlapping mandates, insufficient value of the resource at the local level and a failure to instil harvester autonomy. To address these structural and sociallyembedded institutional constraints severalrecommendations are made. First, to shift co-management from decentralisation to bottom-up democratisation by devolving authority, not just responsibility, to the resource users themselves. By enabling the freedom to experiment, socially-embedded institutional constraints such as dominant narratives of ‘traditional’ and ‘uneducated’ that perpetuate unproductivity and disincentivise learning can be reframed. Second, to remove unnecessary and inefficient bureaucratic layers through re-evaluating the social scale at which natural resource management would work best and scale-up in responsibility as required to match ecological and functional scale. This would diffuse the decision-making power of the traditional authorities and the ineffectiveness of the State in communal areas whilst maintaining a role for these institutions. Lastly, to enhance market transparency to promote the mutually beneficial and regulating role between harvesters and exporters, and to emphasise the commercialisation of non-timber forest products with socio-cultural value, robust customary systems of management and local markets. The objective is not to eliminate statutory governance in favour of customary governance, nor to denounce traditional authorities in favour of co-management institutions, but to democratise power in brokering new invited spaces of modern rural governance. This study contributes to governance theory by conceptualising a framework that addresses the structural and socially-embedded institutional constraints hindering adaptive governance of NTFPs and which offers an operational solution to balance power in a bottom-up process of democratisation where legal pluralism is prevalent.

Includes bibliographical references / The tension between power and democracy is crucial for understanding the nature and Outcomes of marine and coastal fisheries governance processes. However, this thesis Argues that prominent contemporary approaches to fisheries theory tend to promote a neoliberal vision of 'politics without politics', in which emphasis is placed on inclusive, de-centred and collaborative interaction between multiple and divergent state and non-state actors. By doing so, this perspective is likely to predispose the observer to underestimate the primacy of power as a factor determining the engagement between multiple actors in fisheries governance processes. This thesis seeks to address this apparent oversight by exploring some of the crucial power dynamics that are understated or overlooked by contemporary approaches to fisheries governance theory. It presents an ethnographic study of power and micro-politics in public participation and community based representation among small-scale fishing communities on South Africa's Cape Peninsula. The study is filtered through the theoretical framework of Pierre Bourdieu and other critical scholars, so as to reveal the material and symbolic forms of power and strategic practices that manifested through processes of representation and participation. This thesis demonstrates that community-based representation and public participation can serve as mechanisms for dominant actors to exercise and increase their power, while undermining rather than supporting the democratic interests and efforts of small-scale fishers. Drawing on this research on the Cape Peninsula, and on the theorising of Bourdieu and other critical scholars, this thesis concludes by suggesting how power can be brought into the analysis and theorisation of fisheries governance. In particular, this thesis proposes a real politik perspective as a means to understand how structural and micro-political power dynamics constrain the possibilities for democratic small-scale fisher representation and participation in fisheries governance processes.

Includes abstract. / Includes bibliographical references. / Despite significant advances in palaeoenvironmental research in southern Africa, the late Quaternary palaeoenvironmental history of the region remains incomplete as palaeoclimatic proxy records are temporally and spatially discontinuous. The southern Cape is a key focus area within this region as it encompasses the Fynbos Biome, a global biodiversity hotspot, as well as rare Afrotemperate forest patches and is therefore of great botanical importance. As this area includes the transition from southern Africa’s winter rainfall zone to the year-round rainfall zone, it is also important from a climatic perspective.

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 191-222). / Within the context of demographic growth, rapid urbanization and rising urban poverty which characterizes much of Sub-Saharan Africa in the 21st Century, this thesis examines the urban poor's vulnerability to food insecurity and analyses the strategies that households adopt to enhance their resilience in this challenging environment. Harare is the study site, providing an acute example of a city (and country) 'in crisis', and a context in which formal food markets have failed to meet the needs of the urban poor, within a generalized collapse of the economy. The central question, then, is how do the urban poor meet their food needs under such conditions of extreme material deprivation?

Includes abstract. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 247-269). / The extent and consequences of problems related to analysis of spatial information at secondary school in South Africa, arising from historic inadequacies of human and material resources, are investigated. The post-apartheid education policy revision provides for improved spatial competence but a search for practical teaching guidelines in the outcomes-based education curriculum documents was unsuccessful. Theories of spatial cognition, cartographic communication and 'real world' comprehension are related to the development of spatial competence. The potential for geographic information systems (GIS) to enhance spatial concept development through visualisation of spatial data is identified. A postal opinion survey confirmed that a self-instruction programme for map reading (MapTrix, Innes, 2001) is effective. Using the test-intervention-test method, the importance of mathematics instruction for improving map analysis is recognised.

Bibliography: p. 293-304. / The study examines the response of an atmospheric general circulation model (OCM) to a reduction in Antarctic sea-ice extent during summer and winter, with emphasis on non-polar and southern African climates. Following an evaluation of the OCM, the control and perturbation simulations are analysed. The controls are forced by prescribed, observed sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and sea-ice extents, while in the perturbation simulations sea-ice is reduced and replaced with SSTs. The introduced anomalies are derived from an algorithm based on observed ice variability. The simulations are restarts of an AMIP (Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project) configured simulation, and two summers (1979/80 and 1984185) and two winters (1980 and 1985) have been selected for the study. Three replicates have been performed for each time period for both the control and perturbation conditions.

Includes bibliographical references. / This study contributes to a broader effort of institutions toward improving seasonal forecasts over southern Africa. The primary objective is to understand where global models show shortcomings in their simulations, and how this impacts on their seasonal forecast skill. It is proposed that the skill of a model in simulating natural climate variability is an appropriate metric for a model's potential skill in seasonal forecasting. Thus the study investigates the performance of two global models in simulating the regional processes in relation to the processes variability, and how this is related to their forecast skill.

Includes bibliographical references. / The Swartland is a region of sparse natural vegetation, consisting of primarily dry-land crop farming. The area is particualarly sensitive to the changing Meditterranean-type climatic conditions and is characterised by undulating terrain and a history of land degradation and soil erosion. This thesis therefore considers how future climate change may impact on soil loss in such a climatically sensitive region of central economic significance for southern Africa.