Governments in many developing countries have stepped up efforts to provide water and sanitation services sustainably to as many people as possible. In some instances, time frames for provision of services to all of their citizens have been set. While these are commendable efforts, the question whether these services are provided efficiently remains unanswered. In South Africa, although the government conducts consumer satisfaction surveys, seldom are citizens consulted for their views. While its efforts have been hailed as a success in the postapartheid era, there have been many obstacles in the supply process. The assumption has been that the government knows what the citizens want and gives it them, irrespective of their concerns. This study interrogated this assumption as its overall research objective, aiming to evaluate whether a supply-driven approach is effective in satisfying the demands of the consumers. As such the study sought to gain insight into the perceptions of Ohlange Township residents in Inanda, Durban, regarding water supply and sanitation services. The study found out that many of these residents could not afford to pay for basic services, although they are currently expected to pay for some of the costs of service provision. However, in a resource-constrained environment, the government can no longer sustainably provide these services without recovering costs. In this case, the government faces the challenge of balancing its constitutional mandate of providing all citizens with basic services and the demand by the poor for improved services they cannot afford. In this case, supply-led delivery system is severely limited in fully addressing consumer demands. This approach also results in poor service delivery due to inefficient resource management. It also disempowers communities because they are not involved in decision-making processes. Based on the study findings, the demand-led approach, one that is consumer-driven, is recommended. This approach puts the consumer at the centre of the delivery of basic services; allows consumers to participate in decision-making processes and encourages them to honour their obligations by paying for the services received. 11 / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2008.

Water is essential to human survival, health, wellbeing and livelihoods. Access to sufficient water for consumption and domestic use is considered a basic need and a human right. Water use however, goes beyond basic needs; water is an asset important to livelihoods. There is a growing body of literature documenting water and livelihoods linkages, the gendered nature of water access, use and livelihoods however, is usually neglected. This case study investigates the gender, water and livelihoods interface in Mseleni, a rural community in KwaZulu Natal. 'Positive' (e.g. livelihoods enhancing) and 'negative' (e.g. livelihoods constraining) linkages are found. Access to a reliable, sufficient water supply increases the range of possible livelihood activities and has a 'multiplier' effect on livelihood outcomes. Poor water access results in health, opportunity and financial costs and furthermore, constrains livelihood activities; in particular agriculture. Where access is poor, there is a 'market' for selling water and water access, from which some people profit. Water access is influenced by inter and intra-household hierarchies: Gender, age, social status and class affect access to and control over resources and result in uneven accruement of the positive and negative water and livelihoods linkages. Technology, transport and money are potential levers which can alter the social relations of access. Recommendations are made on several levels to enhance livelihoods and advance gender equity: Factoring livelihoods water uses into definitions of basic needs and humans rights, norms, standards, policies and programmes. Working towards a more nuanced understanding of power relations at household and community level which influence water access and livelihood outcomes, coupled with commitment to support and empower disadvantaged people in rural areas to define their basic needs and claim their human rights. And the equitable roll-out of simple technologies, infrastructure and transport to deep rural areas in order to make water for livelihoods more accessible. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2008.

The water sector in South Africa is in the delivery phase of its transformation process, with transformation having commenced in 1994. This transformation is not unlike developments in this sector in other developing countries. South Africa is facing huge backlogs in the provision of basic rural water and sanitation services (DWAF, 2002a, p.3), typical of the scenario facing international developing countries. The SA Government has committed itself to eliminate the basic water supply backlogs by 2008, and the basic sanitation backlogs by 2010 (DWAF, 2002b, p.ii). These targets are more ambitious than the international Millennium Development Goals of halving the world's population without adequate or safe drinking water, or access to basic sanitation by 2015 (WSSCC, 2002a, p.l). The research investigates whether the targets set by Government are achievable in the Province of Kwazulu-Natal (KZN). The South African targets were set ahead of the completion of the Water Services Development Plans or the planning required of the Water Services Authorities (WSAs) in KZN. Although some Municipalities, in their capacity as Water Services Authority, have completed their Water Services Development Plans, others are still in the process of doing so. The deficiency in the provision of basic water and sanitation services in KZN, has been ascertained in this investigation. Also ascertained are the costs and financial resources needed to address the backlogs in service provision and the constraints to delivery of the needed services. The research findings have shown that the backlog in basic water supply in KZN is approximately 3,66 million people, representing 38,2% of the KZN population, whilst the backlog in basic sanitation services is 4,94 million persons, representing some 51,4% of the KZN population. In a rural context only, these figures are appreciably higher. This investigation has shown that the targets set by Government to address rural backlogs in basic services in KZN are ambitious. In terms of planned programmes at Water Services Authority level, it will take an estimated average of 12 years to eliminate the basic water supply and sanitation backlog. The earliest and longest water supply delivery programme ranges from 5 years to 20 years, whilst that for sanitation delivery, ranges from 6 years to 33 years. These programmes far exceed Government's target dates. In terms of the research findings, the backlogs in basic water services in KwaZulu-Natal will require financial resources of R4,87 billion to totally eradicate all basic water backlogs. Similarly, to address the basic sanitation backlog has been estimated at R1,44 billion. It has been recommended in this report that with relatively little additional annual funding that it will be easier to achieve the government target of 2010 (DWAF, 2002b, p.ii) for sanitation delivery than it would for water supply. The planned level of sanitation service has been ascertained to be the VIP latrine in all cases, which does not require a water supply, and thus water and sanitation delivery programmes can be implemented separately. The investigation has revealed that there is sufficient grant funding available in South Africa to meet the planned basic water services delivery programmes of the WSAs, but their programmes exceed the target dates set by Government by many years. If the delivery programmes are accelerated to meet the Government's target dates, the current budget allocations of both DWAF and the Consolidated Municipal Infrastructure Programme (CMIP) are insufficient. In the short-term, the WSAs are not expected to have sourced donor funding to assist with their planned delivery programmes. Thus funding sources within South Africa will initially have to be relied upon.Whilst planned programmes have been developed for the alleviation of water services backlogs in KZN, it has been recommended in the report that they need to be monitored to ensure delivery of services in terms of these programmes. This monitoring and certification of the implementation of planned programmes are essential management tools, as the current planned programmes of the WSAs do not meet the Government's targets of 2008 and 2010 respectively for the elimination of the basic water and sanitation backlogs (DWAF, 2002b, .ii). Financial budgets have been cited as being a problem area by most, but a higher priority problem appears to be the lack of institutional capacity at WSA level to ensure sustainability of projects/schemes in the post-construction phase. Should the projects/schemes not be adequately operated or maintained, it could lead to the implemented projects/schemes becoming defunct, which would negate the national initiatives aimed at backlog alleviation. It is fortunate that legislation such as the Municipal Systems Act (Act N° 32 of 2000) enables Local Government to implement a range of public and private water service provider options that can assist with the needed institutional capacity building, and to also render operations and maintenance services on a contract basis. It is evident from this investigation that a number of major obstacles may delay the achievement of either the planned delivery programmes of the WSAs, or the even greater challenges to meet the Government's targets. The successful, sustainable implementation of these programmes will be dependent on both sufficient funding being available and on solving the lack of institutional capacity. / Thesis (MBA)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2003. / Umngeni Water.

No description available.

This thesis analyses how and why the recurrent costs of water services are shared between different actors in the rural local government areas in Mali which are supported by the international NGO WaterAid. This analysis of the financing arrangements for rural water services is used to critically assess theory, policy and practice in three areas: the community-based management approach to service delivery, the role of decentralised local governments in supporting community management, and the ability of external organisations to influence institutional change. Empirical evidence is presented for the period 2008-2011, drawing on research fieldwork undertaken in collaboration with WaterAid and its partners in 2010 and 2011, as the organisation introduced its own Sustainability Framework to help understand and address the challenges to delivering sustainable rural water services. The thesis argues that approaches to understanding local institutions for natural resource management based on ‘critical institutionalism' (Cleaver 2012), which emphasises the importance of improvisation and adaptation across different scales, should be placed within broader political economy analysis frameworks for assessing challenges in public services delivery from national to local levels. The use of such a framework shows how WaterAid and its partners adopt a ‘critical institutionalist' perspective at community levels to support users in developing ways of raising funds for water services which draw on both traditional practices and NGO influences. However at local government and national levels their approach is based on ideas of ‘best practice' rather than ‘best fit' (Booth 2012): although the costs of local government support to communities under the model promoted by WaterAid lie within international benchmarks, it is unclear over what timescale this approach could be scaled up in Mali without donor support. This demonstrates the limited ability of local governments to ensure the delivery of decentralised public services without additional external resources and support themselves.

Groundwater flow in karst terrains is difficult to map because it can be concentrated through conduits that do not necessarily coincide with the surface features. We applied electrical resistivity (ER) and self-potential (SP) techniques at three sites to locate an inferred trunk conduit feeding a major spring in the Inner Bluegrass region of Kentucky. Royal Spring is the primary water supply for the city of Georgetown; the upper part of its basin coincides with the Cane Run watershed. ER and SP profiles were perpendicular to the inferred trunk conduit orientation. ER profiles (972 m total length) were measured using a dipole–dipole electrode configuration with 2- to 3-m spacing. SP measurements were taken along those ER lines and an additional test profile (230 m) using one stationary reference electrode and another roving electrode at a fixed interval. The low resistivity of water in the conduit, as compared to the high background resistivity of limestone bedrock, is the ER exploration target. A negative SP anomaly corresponds to a low ER anomaly for most of the profiles, but a few are not comparable. Five of seven SP profiles measured over a period of several months were found to be reproducible. Although the overall trends of the final SP profiles for different dates were similar, the SP magnitudes varied with the amount of precipitation and the average soil temperature. The low-resistivity anomalies in the 2D inverted sections and corresponding negative SP anomalies could be water-filled conduits, although mud-filled voids encountered during drilling suggest that these may be tributary conduits rather than the trunk conduit.

This study has examined the perceptions, knowledge and attitudes of pre-service teachers prior to and after a Project WET workshop within their science education and science methods courses at Ball State University. The attitudes and opinions of the pre-service teacher study group were compared to a pre-service teacher control group before and after the workshop. There is evidence to support that those who are exposed to Project WET will have increased knowledge and changed attitudes about water resources. This study found that teaching styles of instructors as well as the activities they choose can affect what is learned in a workshop by the participants. It was also found that pre-service teachers who participate in an environmental education workshop, such as Project WET, are more likely than those who do not participate in such a workshop to report that they felt more confident in their ability to teach science and that they plan to use the materials they received in the future. / Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Management

This thesis describes a short term water demand forecasting application that is based upon a combination of a neural network forecast generator and a rule based system that modifies the resulting forecasts. Conventionally, short term forecasting of both water consumption and electrical load demand has been based upon mathematical models that aim to either extract the mathematical properties displayed by a time series of historical data, or represent the causal relationships between the level of demand and the key factors that determine that demand. These conventional approaches have been able to achieve acceptable levels of prediction accuracy for those days where distorting, non cyclic influences are not present to a significant degree. However, when such distortions are present, then the resultant decrease in prediction accuracy has a detrimental effect upon the controlling systems that are attempting to optimise the operation of the water or electricity supply network. The abnormal, non cyclic factors can be divided into those which are related to changes in the supply network itself, those that are related to particular dates or times of the year and those which are related to the prevailing meteorological conditions. If a prediction system is to provide consistently accurate forecasts then it has to be able to incorporate the effects of each of the factor types outlined above. The prediction system proposed in this thesis achieves this by the use of a neural network that by the application of appropriately classified example sets, can track the varying relationship between the level of demand and key meteorological variables. The influence of supply network changes and calendar related events are accounted for by the use of a rule base of prediction adjusting rules that are built up with reference to past occurrences of similar events. The resulting system is capable of eliminating a significant proportion of the large prediction errors that can lead to non optimal supply network operation.

This thesis focuses on lead related drinking water quality issues in general and on hydraulic transient induced lead pipe corrosion events in water distribution systems in particular. Corrosion is a complex phenomenon, and particularly in water distribution systems, when its already challenging electro-chemical processes are influenced by numerous other physical and chemical factors. Lead pipe corrosion can itself be influenced by both the hydraulic transients and water chemistry events. To understand the relationship among hydraulic, chemical and material processes, an existing numerical 1-D transient-corrosion model for iron-pipe based systems is modified and extended to apply for systems having lead-pipes connected in series. The coupled hydraulic transient and advection-dispersion-reaction model with improved data handling facilities is applied for analyzing the transient induced lead pipe corrosion behaviors in the system for a range of options and establishes interrelationships among the parameters.

This thesis focuses on lead related drinking water quality issues in general and on hydraulic transient induced lead pipe corrosion events in water distribution systems in particular. Corrosion is a complex phenomenon, and particularly in water distribution systems, when its already challenging electro-chemical processes are influenced by numerous other physical and chemical factors. Lead pipe corrosion can itself be influenced by both the hydraulic transients and water chemistry events. To understand the relationship among hydraulic, chemical and material processes, an existing numerical 1-D transient-corrosion model for iron-pipe based systems is modified and extended to apply for systems having lead-pipes connected in series. The coupled hydraulic transient and advection-dispersion-reaction model with improved data handling facilities is applied for analyzing the transient induced lead pipe corrosion behaviors in the system for a range of options and establishes interrelationships among the parameters.