Discourses on challenges regarding water access in South Africa municipalities are intertwined with the concept of human rights and sustainable development goals. Stakeholders and social scientists continue to debate the plaque of service delivery in regard to water access in the African continent. These debates are framed around discussions to explore suitable governance models that are proficient to promote, protect and rule the right to water access amongst the poor. If South Africa and global curve continue to ignore the pleas of the disadvantaged communities on lack of water access, water scarcity will increase causing droughts and floods. The study investigated the water access, challenges and coping strategies in informal settlements specifically focusing on Iscor informal settlement. The challenges of access to water and coping strategies in informal settlements is a continuous issue of concern in South Africa Municipalities. The study was premised on qualitative approach and employed both the snowball sampling and purposive sampling techniques which refer to key participants in the study area, the government officials and the key individuals interviewed for the research. Data were gathered from a total of 61 participants; interviews were conducted with 20 participants in the study area, 10male focus group and 10 female focus group participants, three key individuals from the study area, three government officials from Department of Water and Sanitation (National and Provincial office), five officials from the City of Tshwane metropolitan Municipality and lastly 10 residents on the impact of research, since the collaboration of the research resulted in the provision of basic amenities to the study area during the course of the research. The study analyses the findings of the stated case studies, with each narrative capturing the themes on Demography; Historical background of the study area; level and impact of water access and coping strategies. The findings from the study reflected the complex range of factors influencing and exacerbating the household resilience to water inaccessibility. The research recommends that the government should implement monitoring programmes and projects which will ensure water accessibility in all informal settlements across the city, provide shelters/RDP houses to the residents, educate and create jobs through support groups and NGOs to the study area. / Development Studies / M.A. Development Studies

South Africa is an arid country and its growing population is putting freshwater resources under increasing pressure. Natural salinization of freshwater systems is being exacerbated by anthropogenic influences. The National Water Act (No. 36 of 1998) stipulates the need for an ecological Reserve, that quantity and quality of freshwater needed to protect freshwater ecosystems while allowing sustainable use of freshwater resources. Water guidelines do exist in the form of the South African Water Quality Guidelines (DWAF, 1996) and more recently, Jooste and Rossouw (2002) compiled benchmark values for water quality variables marking the boundaries between ecological health classes in the 4-category classification system. Predominantly international toxicity data were used to compile the guidelines and the benchmark values. In addition, there is a paucity of chronic toxicity data nationally and internationally. This thesis showed that it is statistically possible to derive protective chronic endpoints for salinity from acute toxicity data through extrapolation. The Acute to Chronic Ratio (ACR), Two-Step Linear Regression (LRA) and Multi-Factor Probit Analysis (MPA) extrapolation methods were investigated to derive chronic toxicity data from acute toxicity data. The authors of LRA and MPA recommend associating a time independent LCx value in the range of LC₀¸₀₁ to LC₁₀ with a Predicted No Effect Concentration (PNOEC). In addition to published methods, this thesis studied the possibility of equating a time independent LC₅₀ value and subjected to a safety factor of 5 (LRA LC₅₀/5), to the PNOEC. Extrapolated chronic toxicity data where the toxicants are NaCl and Na₂SO₄ were derived for indigenous South African macroinvertebrates. NaCl and Na₂SO₄ are salts associated with salinisation in South Africa. In addition, a chronic salinity toxicity test protocol for an indigenous South African aquatic macroinvertebrate was designed and chronic toxicity test were performed using NaCl and Na₂SO₄ as toxicants. The experimental chronic toxicity data produced were used to validate results from the acute to chronic extrapolation methods. Extrapolated chronic toxicity data were inputted into Species Sensitivity Distribution curves, and concentrations that were predicted to protect 95 % of species (PC95) were compared to the sub-lethality benchmarks proposed by Jooste and Rossouw (2002) for NaCl and Na₂SO₄. This study concluded that the LRA LC₅₀/5 extrapolation method is the most protective and accurate and proposed that LRA replace the ACR method in future guideline development for inorganic salts.

The work presented in this thesis stemmed out of the apparent lack of a method for incorporating salinity effects into environmental life cycle assessments. Salination of the water resources is a well-known problem in South Africa, and is of strategic concern. Any environmental decision support. tool that does not allow the evaluation of salinity effects therefore has limited applicability in the South African context. The starting-point for the work presented in this thesis was to evaluate existing impact categories, and the characterisation models used to calculate equivalency factors for these impact categories, in an attempt to incorporate salinity effects into existing categories and/or characterisation models. The types of effects that elevated (above normal background levels) dissolved salt concentrations have on the natural and man-made environment were evaluated, and it was concluded that, although there was some overlap with existing impact categories, some of the salinity effects could not be described by existing impact categories. It was also concluded that there are clear and quantifiable causal relationships between releases to the environment and salinity effects. A separate salinity impact category was therefore recommended that includes all salinity effects, including; aquatic ecotoxicity effects, damage to man-made environment, loss of agricultural production (livestock and crops), aesthetic effects and effects to terrestrial fauna and flora. Damage to the man-made environment is evaluated in terms of effects on equipment and structures, interference with processes, product quality and complexity of waste treatment, and is used as an indicator for the environmental consequences derived from the caused additional activity in the man-made environment. Once a conceptual model for a separate salinity impact category had been formulated, existing characterisation models were evaluated to determine their applicability for modelling salinity effects. Salination is a global problem, but generally restricted to local or regional areas, and in order to characterise salinity effects, an environmental fate model would be required in order to estimate salt concentrations in the various compartments, particularly surface and subsurface water. A well-known environmental fate and effect model was evaluated to determine if it could be used either as is, or in modified form to calculate salinity potentiaIs for LCA. It was however concluded that the model is not suitable for the calculation of salinity potentials, and it was therefore decided to develop an environmental fate model that would overcome the limitations of existing model, in terms of modelling the movement of salts in the environment. In terms of spatial differentiation, the same approach that was adopted in the existing model was adopted in developing an environmental fate model for South African conditions. This was done by defining a aunit South African catchmenta (including the air volume above the catchment), which consists of an urban surface; rural agricultural soil (and associated soil moisture); rural natural soil (and associated moisture), groundwater (natural and agricultural) and one river with a flow equal to the sum of the flows of all rivers in South Africa, and a concentration equal to the average concentration of each river in the country. A non steady-state environmental fate model (or, hydrosalinity model) was developed that can predict environmental concentrations at a daily time-step in all the compartments relevant to the calculation of salinity potentials. The environmental fate model includes all the major processes governing the distribution of common ions (sodium, calcium, magnesium, sulphate, chloride and bicarbonate) in the various compartments, and described as total dissolved salts. The effect factors used in the characterisation model were based on the target water quality ranges given by the South African Water Quality Guidelines in order to calculate salinity potentials. The total salinity potential is made up of a number of salinity effects potentials, including; damage to man-made environment, aquatic ecotoxicity effects, damage to man-made environment, loss of agricultural production (livestock and crops), aesthetic effects and effects to terrestrial fauna and flora. The total salinity potentials for emissions into the various initial release compartments are shown in the table below. Initial release compartment Atmosphere River Rural natural surface Rural agricultural surface Total salinity potential (kg TDS equJkg) 0.013 0.16 0.03 1.00 The salinity potentiaIs are only relevant to South African conditions, and their use in LeA in other countries may not be applicable. This, in effect, means that the life cycle activities that generate salts should be within the borders of South Africa. It has been recognised that the LCA methodology requires greater spatial differentiation. Salination is a global problem, but generally restricted to local or regional areas on the globe, and it is foreseen that local or regional salinity potentials would need to be calculated for different areas of the earth where salinity is a problem. The LCA practitioner would then need to know something about the spatial distribution of LCA activities in order to apply the relevant salinity potentials. The LCA practitioner should also take care when applying the salinity potentials to prevent double accounting for certain impacts. Currently, this is simple because no equivalency factors exist for common ions, or for total dissolved salts as a lumped parameter. The distribution of salinity potentials, which make up the total salinity potential, appears to be supported by the environmental policies and legislation of South Africa, in which irrigation using saline water is listed as a controlled activity, and subject to certain conditions. The major recommendations regarding further work are focussed on the collection of data that will allow further refinement of the model, and to decrease the uncertainty and variability associated with the results. The values of the published equivalency factors are dependent on the mathematical definition of the local or regional environment, and these values have been calculated for Westem European conditions. Equivalency factors may vary by several orders of magnitude, depending on how the local or regional conditions have been defined. It is therefore recommended that the model developed in this work ultimately be included into a global nested model that can be used to calculate equivalency factors for other compounds, including heavy metals and organic compounds. This would result in equivalency factors for all compounds that are relevant to South Africa. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2003.

The Kat River is an agricultural catchment that drains salt rich geology. Potential salinity impacts on ecological condition of the river were investigated. Monthly salt concentrations and flow discharges were monitored at ten sites along the Kat River below the Kat Dam. Monthly salt loads were computed to relate salinity to land use and ionic data used to assess the toxicity of major salts using the TIMS model. Concentration duration curves for sodium chloride were derived from flow concentration relationships, representing sodium chloride concentrations to which the aquatic ecosystem had been exposed. The ecological condition was assessed at nineteen sites using SASS5 biotic index over four seasons. Finally, the modelled instream salt concentrations and bioasessments were evaluated in terms of the modelled level of species protection afforded at different salt concentrations. Species Sensitivity Distributions (SSDs) were used for this exercise. There was a general downstream increase in salinity with the minimum concentrations recorded at the Fairbain tributary (84 mg/L) and maximum levels at the sewage outfall in Fort Beaufort (1222 mg/L). There was evidence that citrus irrigation upstream of Fort Beaufort increased salinisation. Sodium chloride, and to a lesser extent magnesium sulphate, were the dominant salts in the Kat River catchment, with the latter being more toxic. However these had little or no impact on the aquatic ecosystem. Flow-derived sodium chloride concentrations showed that both the Balfour and Blinkwater tributaries were in a fair/ poor condition. However with regard to ecological condition, it was demonstrated that the river is generally in a good state except for the Blinkwater River and the lower catchment. Degraded habitat condition at the Blinkwater was responsible for poor ecological condition. Integrating SSD derived classes, sodium chloride classes and ecological condition indicated that sodium chloride is a driver of ecological condition at the sewage treatment works and the subsequent site (only two of nineteen biomonitoring sites).