abstract: Many global development initiatives focus on improving access to safe and affordable water. Governments and infrastructure in rapidly urbanizing cities struggle to meet the increased demand for water, especially in peri-urban and informal settlements of sub-Saharan Africa. The private sector, in the form of small water enterprises (SWEs), plays an increasing role in satisfying demand for water, but their greater effects have seldom been investigated. This research explores how SWEs affect access to household water in a peri-urban settlement of Accra, Ghana and investigates their social, economic, and environmental impacts in the community. This research also examines how SWEs influence security and sustainability goals within the framing concepts of the US Army’s Stability doctrine and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The methods employed in this study were interviews, observation, and review of existing literature and case studies. Results of this qualitative analysis reveal that while SWEs increase and diversify local access to clean water, provide economic opportunities and jobs—especially to women—they also present environmental and health concerns when unregulated and unaddressed by educators, city officials, and community leaders. Further, in cases where municipal governments cannot provide safe and consistent access to clean water in the given location, results show that SWEs enterprises can work in cohesion with both the SDGs and the US Army stability goals. Moving forward, city officials, development programs, and US Army stability doctrine should consider supporting SWEs to increase water access and improve other developmental outcomes, while working to avoid potentially negative environmental and health outcomes. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Sustainability 2019

No description available.

Wars fought over oil have characterized the latter half of the past century, the repercussions of which have been felt in every corner of the globe. Although war remains a constant, attention is transitioning away from oil to another natural resource. As we move through the 21st century, water wars are now at the forefront of global conflicts. Fighting over access to this vital resource is nothing new. Allen Snitow, a documentary filmmaker and journalist claims: “For thousands of years, the conflicts between towns and countries have been defined by the battle over who gets to use the stream. The word rival and river have the same root.”1 Disputes over access to water have been inevitable because of human’s dependence on this natural resource for sustenance. The lack of a substitution for water makes the world water crisis a threat requiring immediate attention and innovative solutions. The assumed responsibility of the government to provide sustainable solutions has proven ineffective in its failure to protect the human right to water. As a world water crisis, there is a need for a more cohesive management approach. Identifying and implementing effective and equitable approaches to water management is a highly debated subject across many disciplines. A common approach to combating issues of access to potable water involves the private sector and its reliance on the market. Alternatively, some advocate for treating water as a public or community good to avoid the commodification of an essential resource. Through various examples and a fleshed out case study, I illustrate how solutions to the water crisis are not determined by theoretical frameworks, but are shaped by the viability of the approaches in a given region. The factors that influence the feasibility of an approach include: the availability of water resources and other geographical or environmental circumstances; the political stability or corruption within the government; the degree of established infrastructure; determination of who the government is responsible for providing water services to; and the specific cultural needs of different groups. By analyzing the aforementioned theoretical perspectives on water management through a lens that considers each of these factors, I attempt to identify and analyze the context for which these approaches are appropriate and effective in providing equitable access to clean water. The political, economic, cultural and geographical contexts of a region are critical in considering how to best alleviate issues of access to potable water. In addition, I argue that across all of these diverse contexts in which we identify water access issues, it is invariably necessary to treat water as a public good in order to protect the human right to water. 1 Alan Snitow, Deborah Kaufman, and Michael Fox, Thirst: Fighting the corporate theft of our water, (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2007), 3.

Thesis (LL.M. (Environmental law and Management)) --University of Limpopo, 2007. / The purpose of this thesis was to critically examine the enforcement of environmental regulations with special reference to the enforcement of offences in the National Water Act 36 of 1998. “Enforcement” was conceptualized as “power” the exercise of which is constrained by the constitutionally guaranteed rights, especially the rights contained in Chapter 2 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa Act 108 of 1996 – the Bill of Rights. “Compliance” was conceptualized as a rational action. The polluter is both a rational economic actor as well as a rational political actor. “Enforcement” and “Compliance” were further considered as economic activities with costs and benefits. The “responsive enforcement and compliance” model was also adopted in this thesis. Environmental regulation is contentious because of the failure to adequately distinguish environmental crimes (mala prohibita) from common law crimes (mala in se) and the erroneous believe in the immutability of law especially pro-defendant procedural rights in criminal prosecution. This failure to distinguish environmental crimes from common law crimes resulted in the requirement of the proof of mens rea in criminal prosecution for breach of environmental law. Arguments were advanced to show that mens rea can easily be proved in environmental law areas of land use and development and resource conservation while it is a Herculean task for the prosecutor to prove mens rea in waste disposal and pollution offences. Arguments were also advanced, in terms of s. 24 of the 1996 Constitution and s. 2 of the National Environmental Management Act 107 of 1998, to show that “sustainable development” and the principles derived therefrom, especially the “precautionary principle” and the “polluter–pays principle”, are part of the corpus of South African constitutional and statutory laws. The “precautionary principle” and the “polluter-pays principle” have assumed the status of customary international law, and consequently part of South African laws in terms of s. 232 of 1996 Constitution. The provisions of s. 24(b) of 1996 Constitution prescribed both positive and negative duties for the state in respect of environmental regulation and prescribed the ambit of environmental regulation in South Africa. The “precautionary principle” is interpreted as deliberation guiding in form and a legal rule in content. The “precautionary principle” as a rule guides the actions of organs of state and other environmental stakeholders. The “polluter-pays principles” is interpreted as a legal rule which should be applied in the “all-or-nothing” sense. Arguments were advanced for the application of the “polluter-pays principles” in criminal prosecution. The legal effect of the application of “polluter-pays principle” in criminal prosecution for environmental crimes is to negative mens rea and transform environmental crimes to strict liability offences. In the environmental law areas of land use and development and resource conservation where mens rea is easily provable, the application of the “polluter-pays principle” would limit the prosecutor’s duty to proving, beyond reasonable doubt, the acts that constitute the offence against the accused. Thereafter, it is opened to the accused to prove, on scale of probabilities, that he lacks the mens rea (dolus or culpa) necessary for conviction. In the area of waste disposal and pollution control where proof of mens rea is difficult, the application of the “polluter-pays principle” should result in the application of the rule in Rylands Fletcher. All the prosecutor need do to obtain conviction is to prove, beyond reasonable doubt, the acts that constitute the offence against the accused. The Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) is identified and recognized as the dominant social paradigm (DSP) in South Africa. It is within the context of this DSP that environmental regulation is situated. Examining the penal provisions in the National Water Act 36 of 1998 against the background of the DSP, one is not left in doubt why the water pollution and degradation offences in the Act are fault-based. The DSP also partly accounts for the subordination of criminal law to administrative and civil judicial procedures in the enforcement of offences in the NWA 36 of 1998. Offences in the NWA 36 of 1998 were classified into 5 groups– failure crimes, reporting crimes, fraud crimes, obstruction crimes and environmental injury crimes. The failure crimes, reporting crimes, fraud crimes and obstruction crimes are common law crimes (mala in se) in the environmental law context, they are therefore subject to criminal prosecution like any other common law crime. Most of the environmental injury crimes are subject to administrative and civil judicial penalties, that is, the criminal sanction is subordinated to administrative and civil enforcement. The water pollution and degradation offences in s. 151 (1)(i)(j) of NWA 36 of 1998 are fault-based. In a water stressed country, this is a subsidy to industry for job creation and poverty eradication as dictated by the DSP– the RDP. However, in the prosecution for water pollution and degradation offenses, the application of the “polluter-pays principle” would negative mens rea. The legal effect is that in any prosecution for water pollution or degradation, to secure conviction, the prosecutor is only expected to prove the acts constituting the offence beyond reasonable doubt. It is thereafter open to the accused to the prove, on scale of probabilities, that he lacked either the dolus or culpa required to ground conviction. Since different cast of players are responsible for environmental protection and criminal prosecution (the National Prosecution Authority), coordination amongst the environmental agency, the prosecuting authority and the police is recommended. This can be achieved, inter alia, through joint participation in national enforcement conferences and joint participation in environmental task forces.

No description available.

This study makes a contribution to the Australian urban water supply industry because it highlights some of the critical issues the industry faces in the future. Through the scenarios it illuminates an alternative method to develop strategies for the future. Ultimately the end result of scenario planning is not a more accurate picture of the future, but better decision making for the future. This is a significant piece of research because it demonstrates the advantages of the scenario planning process as a method to illuminate the potential future dangers and opportunities in the water industry's business environment. The scenarios can be used as a launching pad for strategic planning and to prepare the water industry for the uncertainties it faces. Water is precious and essential to life. Water supply is arguably the ultimate essential service. Australia uses about 22,000 gigalitres of water [l gigalitre (GL) = 1,000,000,000 litres, approximately 444 Olympic swimming pools (ABS 2004)] per annum across all sectors, irrigation, industry and domestic. The aim of this study was to determine the critical issues for the future of the Australian urban water supply industry. The study achieved this with the aid of scenarios that tell stories about urban water supply to the year 2025. A key to this study is the concept of organisations as living organisms, which are capable of learning and adapting to changes in their business environment. Today's business environment is constantly changing through globalisation, technological innovation and society's values. To survive, organisations must be able to anticipate and adapt to this often uncertain environment. / Traditional methods, from a mechanistic perspective, of developing strategic plans for the future have a poor track record because they invariably rely on forecasting and predicting the future from historical information that, in an increasingly uncertain and fast changing world, may no longer be appropriate. Scenarios are stories about the future. They combine uncertainty and trends with creativity, insight and intuition to enable an organisation to learn and develop strategies for the future from an organic perspective. Scenarios are not predictions, but they are plausible stories about the future. The stories do allow an organisation to re-perceive a different world by questioning prevailing paradigms and assumptions. The underlying philosophical basis for scenario planning is constructivist which is consistent with the ontological position taken for this study. This study was undertaken under a qualitative research paradigm. The ontological position taken to answer the research question was constructivist with a critical perspective where realities are intangible mental constructs based on the culture and experience of individuals or groups. Constructs are more or less informed and changeable. From an epistemological perspective the constructivist position assumes that the enquirer and subject of the research are interactively linked so that findings are created. Research under a constructivist paradigm requires a hermeneutical and dialectical methodology leading to interpretation. / The methodology adopted for this study was grounded research, being a modification of grounded theory and applicable to the business environment. Data were initially gathered by semi-structured interview, the objective being two fold. 1. The data were used to elicit critical issues for the future of the Australian urban water supply industry. 2. The data were used to develop 'plausible' futures for the urban water supply industry in the form of scenarios. The data were analysed using grounded research principles and organised using NVivo (Richards 1999; NVivo 2002). After two stages of analysis, 16 major categories, focusing on the future emerged from the data. In order to write the scenarios two key uncertainties critical to the future of the urban water supply industry were required for the scenario matrix. The two selected were 'Water availability' and 'Technological change' from the water industry's contextual environment. These two key uncertainties were considered to be the most uncertain and have the greatest impact on the future of the water industry. These two key uncertainties formed the context for the scenarios into which over 200 other issues were de-dimentionalised, as in the scenario planning method, and crafted into four scenarios. A time horizon of 2025 was selected for the scenarios to reflect the water industry's long term planning horizon. / The scenarios were called 'Decadent water use', which depicts a future where there is plenty of water and technology addresses the cost of service delivery; 'Smart water world', which depicts a future where water is scarce but is addressed by technology providing alternative sources of water; 'Muddy waters', which depicts a future where there is plenty of water but technology does not address the cost of delivery and issues of infrastructure deterioration and 'Mad Max water world', which depicts a future where water is scarce and technology does not address the scarcity, the situation becomes a crisis. From the scenarios and using concepts from complex adaptive systems theory a number of critical issues emerged from the data. Some were at a philosophical level such as whether water, as a common good, fits with society's philosophy about water. Others were at a practical level for example expressing the criticality for the water industry to build community trust and support. The research notes the potential for further qualitative research in the fields of community attitudes and behaviours towards water, water services, recycling wastewater and the preparedness to pay for water services. In addition there is potential to further develop scenarios presented in this study; 'Decadent water use', 'Smart water world', 'Muddy waters' and 'Mad Max water world'; for the Australian urban water supply industry using the data from this research as a basis for group consultation.

In this thesis, detection of active water-borne bacteria was achieved by combining flow cytometry with vital dyes that characterise the metabolic status of cells. Following optimisation, these techniques were applied to investigate the activity of bacteria exposed to disinfection, both in the laboratory and in real systems. Raw and potable waters from various locations around South Australia were then analysed to investigate relationships between numbers of active bacteria and those detected by traditional culture-based techniques. Flow cytometric cell sorting of active bacteria followed by 16S rRNA gene-directed PCR and denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) was then used to track the survival of bacteria through water treatment and into distribution. In doing so the identification of active bacteria not detected by culture was achieved. Finally, real-time PCR was optimised for detection of ammonia oxidising bacteria. This group of bacteria were responsible for loss of disinfection residual within a chloraminated distribution system. / thesis (PhD)--University of South Australia, 2005.

The measurement of water in soil on a potential, gravimetric or volumetric basis is considered, with studies concentrating on the measurement of water by dielectric and neutron moderation methods. The ability of the time-domain reflectometry technique to measure water content simultaneously at different spatial locations is an important advantage of the technique. The reported apparent dielectric by the TRASE� time-domain reflectometer and Pyelab time-domain reflectometry systems is sensitive to change in extension cable length. In some soil, e.g. a commercial sand, the response to increasing extension length of extension cable is linear. For other soil a linear response occurs for certain lengths of cable at different moisture contents. A single model accounting for clay content, extension cable length, time-domain reflectometry system, probe type and inherent moisture conditions explained 62.2 % of variation from the control (0 m extension) cable. The extension cable causes a decrease in the returning electromagnetic-wave energy; leading to a decline in the slope used in automatic end-point determination. Calibration for each probe installation when the soil is saturated, and at small water contents is recommended. The ability of time-domain reflectometry, frequency-domain and neutron moderation techniques in measuring soil water content in a Brown Chromosol is examined. An in situ calibration, across a limited range of water contents, for the neutron moderation method is more sensitive to changing soil water content than the factory supplied 'universal' calibration. Comparison of the EnviroSCAN� frequency-domain system and the NMM count ratio indicates the frequency-domain technique is more sensitive to change in soil water conditions. The EnviroSCAN� system is well suited to continuous profile-based measurement of soil water content. Results with the time-domain reflectometry technique were disappointing, indicating the limited applicability of time-domain reflectometry in profile based soil water content measurement in heavy-textured soil, or soil with a large electrical conductivity. The method of auguring to a known depth and placement of the time-domain reflectometry probe into undisturbed soil is not recommended. A time-domain reflectometry system is adapted for in situ measurement of water in an iron ore stockpile. The laboratory calibration for water content of the processed iron ore compares favourably to a field calibration. In the field study, the 28 m extension cable used to connect the probes to the time-domain reflectometry affected the end-point determination of the time-domain reflectometry system. To account for this, 0.197 should be subtracted from the reported apparent dielectric before calculation of volumetric moisture content.

Recent studies in water management policy point to insufficient recognition of water as a scarce commodity and the failure of pricing policies to account for the full economic costs of its production and supply. These costs include opportunity costs related to alternative uses of water; user costs associated with managing a scarce resource; and costs of externalities such as ground water depletion, pollution of waterways, and greenhouse gas emissions. Existing cost recovery based pricing policies may lead to inefficiencies such as excess consumption, under-investment in water infrastructure, and unnecessary subsidisation. Water scarcity can be managed in several ways. We can increase supply by investment in additional harvesting capabilities or new technologies such as desalination; we can constrain consumption so that existing supplies last longer; or we can use water in more efficient ways. As a short term measure, most countries adopt water restrictions when supplies are at critical levels. In the future, as urban population growth continues, harvesting of storm water and reuse of grey water may become part of a sustainable water management strategy. Water trading can be used to move water to where the marginal benefits are highest. Considerable water savings are possible through the use of more efficient industrial and domestic appliances. There is evidence in some countries that higher water tariffs have reduced consumption and promoted awareness of conservation. If we accept that water is an economic good, then we need to understand the costs related to its production, the patterns of its use, and the benefits received by different users. This thesis is an examination of theoretical and applied aspects of urban water pricing based on analysis of cost, demand, and welfare. We present theoretical models of cost that include economies of scale as a parameter, and a model of water demand by households with heterogeneous preferences. We determine marginal cost at the efficient level of output based on a partial equilibrium of supply and demand. We also show that when water is produced with increasing returns to scale, the efficient price will be insufficient to recover all costs, and therefore a form of second best pricing is required. We contrast conventional notions about water suppliers being cost minimisers with an alternative frontier model of cost efficiency. Two case studies examine the provision of water services under different forms of ownership. The first case study examines the provision of water to domestic households in the state of Victoria, Australia. The second case study examines the supply of water to the residents of Manila, one of the world’s largest cities that privatised its water service in 1997 under a form of concession agreement. A third case study derives an efficient cost frontier for a sample of water utilities from Asia and Australia and proposes a form of best practice pricing. The thesis concludes with a summary of the main results and policy conclusions, and ideas for future research. / http://proxy.library.adelaide.edu.au/login?url= http://library.adelaide.edu.au/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?BBID=1289196 / Thesis (PhD) -- School of Economics, 2007

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Nevada, Reno, 2005. / "August, 2005." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 80-84). Library also has microfilm. Ann Arbor, Mich. : ProQuest Information and Learning Company, [2005]. 1 microfilm reel ; 35 mm. Online version available on the World Wide Web.