Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Queensland, 2005. / Includes bibliography.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Texas at El Paso, 2007. / Title from title screen. Vita. CD-ROM. Includes bibliographical references. Also available online.

This study investigated the potential application of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) in water supply, taking cognisance of the water demand and supply in the Central Coastal Namibian (CCN) mines. NamWater does not meet demand for the existing and planned mines in the CCN. Primary objective was to investigate and analyse water demand and supply as well as the effectiveness of PPP as a solution by exploring its potential, successes and challenges. In order to obtain relevant information, literature review was used to collect evidence on water demand and supply in the north-central Namibia as well as the application of PPP in provision of water supply. Multi-case studies were carried out on three operational mines, namely; Rio Tinto Rössing Uranium Mine, Langer Heinrich Uranium Mine and Areva Trekkopje Uranium Mine to attain empirical data on water supply requirements. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect the data supplemented by interviews with NamWater, operational mines within the study area, government institutions, and knowledgeable consultants on water and the mining environment. The key findings included: institutional weaknesses and lack of legislation frameworks to support PPP projects; skills shortage; and financing problems were identified as major challenges. Results further show that these problems could be resolved by effectively implementing a PPP approach, whereby the Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) enters into a contract with the public authority. The study concludes that there is a need to increase water output to meet current and future supply requirements to these mines. This situation should be addressed by all stakeholders, from government to private sectors. The study recommends that a sea water desalination plant should be developed to increase water capacity supply to the existing operational and prospective mines in the area. The PPP approach is proposed as a possible solution to water supply infrastructure service delivery problem to ensure long-term water security in the CCN mines.

The traditional metropolitan water -supply planning problem is characterized by two main steps: (a) project future water requirements based on present rates of economic growth,, and (b) schedule water development projects to be introduced into the system on time to meet these predicted requirements. The City of Tucson plans its water supply essentially in this manner. The prime objective of this phase of our research was to formally review the above problem and to formulate it in terms of concepts of management science. Implied commitments to accept Colorado River water and gradual changes in quality of Tucson's groundwater force serious consideration of the economic tradeoffs between alternative sources and uses of water. These alternatives lead to a need for a restatement of water - supply planning objectives in more precise forms than have heretofore been put forth. The doctoral dissertation by G. Clausen addresses itself to the above restatement with actual data on the Tucson basin. The various water -supply planning objective functions including the traditional one are all expressions which maximize the difference between gains and losses involved with water development. They can be expressed mathematically and differentiated on the basis of how these gains and losses are defined. In the traditional sense, gains derived from meeting projected requirements are assumed to be infinite, and losses are taken to be actual project costs and not social costs associated with undesirable economic growth. Therefore, maximization of net gains is accomplished by minimizing project costs, and gains do not even have to be expressed. Consideration of alternatives, however, requires that gains be expressed quantitatively as benefits to individuals, communities, or regions, i.e., primary, secondary, or tertiary benefits. The same logic holds for the expression of total costs. An objective function, used to express the water- supply problem in the Tucson Basin, considers gains as cash revenue to a hypothetical central water - control agency which sells water to the users within the basin. Losses are considered as marginal costs to the agency for producing, treating, and distributing water. The concept of economic demand is used to estimate the amount of water that municipal, industrial, and agricultural users will purchase at different prices. Linear demand functions are postulated. The possible sources of supply considered are groundwater from within the basin, groundwater from the neighboring Avra Valley Basin, reclaimed waste water, and Central Arizona Project water from the Colorado River. Constraints are formulated to allow for limits on water availability, for social limits on water prices, and for minimal requirements of each user over a specified time period; these permit a determination of optimal allocations of water under different conditions to answer "what if' questions, given the assumptions of the model. The resulting static model is termed a pricing model and is optimized by first decomposing the objective function into component parts with each part representing terms involving only one source of water. In instances involving inequality constraints, quadratic programming is used. In other instances where equality constraints or unconstrained conditions exist, Lagrange multipliers and calculus methods are used. These latter conditions arise when it is determined at which point certain constraints become inactive. In the completely general case, this type of decomposition is not possible, but it appears that in many specific uses objective functions of this nature can be profitably decomposed and optima determined much more conveniently than otherwise possible. The model clearly identifies the opportunity costs associated with the required use of Colorado River water in lieu of the cheaper Tucson groundwater.

No description available.

MSc, Development Planning, Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, University of the Witwatersrand, 2000

Student Number : 7336898 - MSc (Eng) research report - School of Civil and Environmental Engineering - Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment / Theme and Context Despite being the source of two of Africa’s greatest rivers, the Nile and the Congo, Rwanda is a water scarce country and 50% of the citizens of the capital, Kigali, do not have access to safe drinking water. Rwanda’s tragic history of violent social upheaval combined with regional macro-economic factors and the effects of globalization have made this tiny country one of the poorest on the African continent. Aim and Objectives of this Study The aim of this report is to establish the value that Rainwater Harvesting holds as a supplementary water source for the city of. To evaluate this potential intervention, the suitability of the climate for the harvesting of rainwater is reviewed as well as the availability of the required resources and the effect that the prevailing social environment may have on an implementation program. The current developments in the practice of Rainwater Harvesting are researched and ways in which Rainwater Harvesting could be utilized are explored as well as the possible impediments that might be encountered. Scope and Methodology Adopted The scope of the report includes: 1. Providing an overview of the country both geographically as well as socially. 2. Establishing the need for alternative water sources by: a. Reviewing the present water supplies for the city particularly with regard to their vulnerability to the rapid environmental degradation being experienced within the country, b. Reviewing the prevailing water/health nexus. 3. Investigating metrological records, specifically rainfall patterns, and the quality of the statistics. 4. Review international trends and research in rainwater harvesting specifically in poor countries. 5. Considering obstacles to implementing a wide-ranging scheme to harvest rainwater. The methodology adopted includes: 1. Reviewing published research on the subject of Rainwater Harvesting techniques and implementation. 2. Attending symposia on the subject. 3. Meeting with water practitioners both in the public sector as well as in NGOs to establish the current status of water availability, quality and consumption. 4. Conducting on-site research into water sourcing problems in and around Kigali. 5. Designing, sizing and costing hypothetical installations suitable for local conditions. Summary of Main Findings, Conclusions and Recommendations Although the climate and topography are very favorable to the use of Rainwater Harvesting, this report finds that the promotion of Rainwater harvesting is just one of a number of possible interventions which should be pursued in order to improve the availability of water to the citizens of Kigali The cost and sophistication of Rainwater Harvesting schemes vary considerably but at the lower end of the scale the technology would be affordable to most Kigali residents and the community has the potential human resource to be trained to execute the work. Obstacles to this approach include ignorance about the safety of storing water, the comparative low cost of municipal water the perception that water collection is the responsibility of a family’s women and children. This report also found that a household using a Rainwater Harvesting scheme is likely to require some supplementary water on occasions. Furthermore, as the potential to catch sufficient water is a function of the ratio of a dwelling’s roof area to the number of inhabitants, its efficacy is limited in densely inhabited poor communities. Strong leadership and coordination would be necessary for a successful wideranging Rainwater Harvesting implementation project. In addition a coordinated educational programme will have to be conducted to dispel myths about stored water and to create the required skills base. The statutes and bylaws regarding water would also have to be reviewed to avoid legal impediments. This report concludes that rainwater harvesting cannot be relied upon to fulfill all the communities’ water needs but it can go a long way to improving the general access to safe water and in so doing reduce the time and labour presently demanded, mainly of women and children, in the carrying of heavy loads of water.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Oregon State University, 2007. / Printout. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 199-213). Also available on the World Wide Web.

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This item was digitized as part of the Million Books Project led by Carnegie Mellon University and supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Cornell University coordinated the participation of land-grant and agricultural libraries in providing historical agricultural information for the digitization project; the University of Arizona Libraries, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and the Office of Arid Lands Studies collaborated in the selection and provision of material for the digitization project.