M. Tech. Business Administration / The scarcity of sustainable adequate water resources is one of the world’s leading problems and is currently affecting more than 1.1 billion people in Africa. This research study contributes towards the existing body of knowledge on the criteria applied by the International Co-operating Partners (ICPs) or Donors in financing water projects in Southern Africa. The primary purpose of the study was to explore the rationale behind why ICPs are motivated to fund water projects within Orange-Senqu River Commission (ORASECOM) and also to describe the expectations by ICPs from funding developing countries water infrastructure projects.

This dissertation reviews the principles of International River Basin Management and their application by the governments of Angola, Botswana and Namibia. The dissertation deals with the issues popularised by governments, water planners and international agencies that the twenty-first century's conflicts will be fought over water. Increasingly this concern is being used to justify new water-supply dams and river diversion projects. This is especially so in arid Southern Africa, the focus of this dissertation, where numerous major international water transfers are underway and many more are being planned. While Namibia's growing thirst is a serious problem, the story is more complicated than just too many basin states putting their straws into one glass. The growing conflicts over the Okavango's water use raise broader questions about ownership of common resources, and equity of access to those resources. Most southern African countries depend on primary natural resources to sustain economies and their people. The environmental issues are remarkably similar in countries within the region, and the economic, social and political fortunes of the individual countries are intertwined. Furthermore, the ways in which resources are being managed are similar and thus cause for common concern. In general, the ability of countries in the region to achieve sustainable development depends not on national policies but also on the commitment of neighbours to practice sound environmental management. This is because activities in one country can easily cause impacts on a neighbour and possibly result in "downstream" opportunity costs. This case study of the Okavango River Basin, a river facing prospective developments from riparian states Angola, Botswana and Namibia, attempts to find sustainable solutions to solving international resource conflict. In addition to outlining the possible future threats to the Okavango River, this study proclaims a number of recommendations in the way of declaring alternatives to Namibia's plans to extract water from the Okavango River. One such recommendation is the encouragement of Water Demand Management as an alternative to water transfer by Namibia. This management strategy is aimed at optimising the use of available water rather than developing new or extended supplies and as a result it has a vital role to play since it contributes to sustainable development rather than over exploitation of limited natural resources. The majority of large rivers in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) are shared by three or more countries, and as the region's water resources come under growing development pressure, the importance of establishing effective national and regional methods and institutions for sustainably managing these resources will increase greatly. From economic, ecological and human welfare perspectives, the Okav,ango River Basin is arguably one of the most important transboundary natural resources (TBNR) in the region. Owing to the basin's remoteness and history of conflict, the Okavango was spared much of the destructive developments that rivers in the region have suffered. As a result, the relatively pristine Okavango ecosystem continues to provide significant benefits to the region much as it has done for centuries. As we approach the new millennium, however, it is clear that the health of the Okavango River Basin is threatened as riparian states increasingly turn to the Okavango to support their growing populations and economies. / Thesis (M.Env.Dev.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2002.

Climate change and a growing demand for freshwater resources due to population increases and socio-economic changes will make water a limiting factor (in terms of both quantity and quality) in development. The need for reliable quantitative estimates of water availability cannot be over-emphasised. However, there is frequently a paucity of the data required for this quantification as many basins, especially in the developing world, are inadequately equipped with monitoring networks. Existing networks are also shrinking due mainly to shortages in human and financial resources. Over the past few decades mathematical models have been used to bridge the data gap by generating datasets for use in management and policy making. In southern Africa, the Pitman monthly rainfall-runoff model has enjoyed relatively popular use as a water resources estimation tool. However, it is acknowledged that models are abstractions of reality and the data used to drive them is imperfect, making the model outputs uncertain. While there is acknowledgement of the limitations of modelled data in the southern African region among water practitioners, there has been little effort to explicitly quantify and account for this uncertainty in water resources estimation tools and explore how it affects the decision making process. Uncertainty manifests itself in three major areas of the modelling chain; the input data used to force the model, the parameter estimation process and the model structural errors. A previous study concluded that the parameter estimation process for the Pitman model contributed more to the global uncertainty of the model than other sources. While the literature abounds with uncertainty estimation techniques, many of these are dependent on observations and are therefore unlikely to be easily applicable to the southern African region where there is an acute shortage of such data. This study focuses on two aspects of making hydrologic predictions in ungauged basins. Firstly, the study advocates the development of an a priori parameter estimation process for the Pitman model and secondly, uses indices of hydrological functional behaviour to condition and reduce predictive uncertainty in both gauged and ungauged basins. In this approach all the basins are treated as ungauged, while the historical records in the gauged basins are used to develop regional indices of expected hydrological behaviour and assess the applicability of these methods. Incorporating uncertainty into the hydrologic estimation tools used in southern Africa entails rethinking the way the uncertain results can be used in further analysis and how they will be interpreted by stakeholders. An uncertainty framework is proposed. The framework is made up of a number of components related to the estimation of the prior distribution of the parameters, used to generate output ensembles which are then assessed and constrained using regionalised indices of basin behavioural responses. This is premised on such indices being based on the best available knowledge covering different regions. This framework is flexible enough to be used with any model structure to ensure consistent and comparable results. While the aim is to eventually apply the uncertainty framework in the southern African region, this study reports on the preliminary work on the development and testing of the framework components based on South African basins. This is necessitated by the variations in the availability and quality of the data across the region. Uncertainty in the parameter estimation process was incorporated by assuming uncertainty in the physical and hydro-meteorological data used to directly quantify the parameter. This uncertainty was represented by the range of variability of these basin characteristics and probability distribution functions were developed to account for this uncertainty and propagate it through the estimation process to generate posterior distributions for the parameters. The results show that the framework has a great deal of potential but can still be improved. In general, the estimated uncertain parameters managed to produce hydrologically realistic model outputs capturing the expected regimes across the different hydro-climatic and geo-physical gradients examined. The regional relationships for the three indices developed and tested in this study were in general agreement with existing knowledge and managed to successfully provide a multi-criteria conditioning of the model output ensembles. The feedback loop included in the framework enabled a systematic re-examination of the estimation procedures for both the parameters and the indices when inconsistencies in the results were identified. This improved results. However, there is need to carefully examine the issues and problems that may arise within other basins outside South Africa and develop guidelines for the use of the framework. / iText 1.4.6 (by lowagie.com)

Hydrological models are widely used tools in water resources estimation, but they are simple representations of reality and are frequently based on inadequate input data and uncertainties in parameter values. Data observation networks are expensive to establish and maintain and often beyond the resources of most developing countries. Consequently, measurements are difficult to obtain and observation networks in many countries are shrinking, hence obtaining representative observations in space and time remains a challenge. This study presents some guidelines on the identification, quantification and reduction of sources of uncertainty in water resources estimation in southern Africa, a data scarce region. The analyses are based on example sub-basins drawn from South Africa and the application of the Pitman hydrological model. While it has always been recognised that estimates of water resources availability for the region are subject to possible errors, the quantification of these uncertainties has never been explicitly incorporated into the methods used in the region. The motivation for this study was therefore to contribute to the future development of a revised framework for water resources estimation that does include uncertainty. The focus was on uncertainties associated with climate input data, parameter estimation (and recognizing the uncertainty due model structure deficiencies) methods and water use data. In addition to variance based measures of uncertainty, this study also used a reservoir yield based statistic to evaluate model output uncertainty, which represents an integrated measure of flow regime variations and one that can be more easily understood by water resources managers. Through a sensitivity analysis approach, the results of the individual contribution of each source of uncertainty suggest regional differences and that clear statements about which source of uncertainty is likely to dominate are not generally possible. Parameter sensitivity analysis was used in identifying parameters which are important withinspecific sub-basins and therefore those to focus on in uncertainty analysis. The study used a simple framework for evaluating the combined contribution of uncertainty sources to model outputs that is consistent with the model limitations and data available, and that allows direct quantitative comparison between model outputs obtained by using different sources of information and methods within Spatial and Time Series Information Modelling (SPATSIM) software. The results from combining the sources of uncertainties showed that parameter uncertainty dominates the contribution to model output uncertainty. However, in some parts of the country especially those with complex topography, which tend to experience high rainfall spatial variability, rainfall uncertainty is equally dominant, while the contributions of evaporation and water use data uncertainty are relatively small. While the results of this study are encouraging, the weaknesses of the methods used to quantify uncertainty (especially subjectivity involved in evaluating parameter uncertainty) should not be neglected and require further evaluations. An effort to reduce data and parameter uncertainty shows that this can only be achieved if data access at appropriate scale and quality improves. Perhaps the focus should be on maintaining existing networks and concentrating research efforts on making the most out of the emerging data products derived from remote sensing platforms. While this study presents some initial guidelines for evaluating uncertainty in South Africa, there is need to overcome several constraints which are related to data availability and accuracy, the models used and the capacity or willingness to adopt new methods that incorporate uncertainty. The study has provided a starting point for the development of new approaches to modelling water resources in the region that include uncertain estimates.

The inter-scalar interaction of norms is pervasive in African hydropolitics due to the nature of freshwater on the continent – shared, strategic and that which necessitates cooperation. However, with few exceptions, particular norms created at specific levels of scale have been researched in isolation of those existing at other levels. It is argued that this exclusionary approach endangers the harmonised and integrated development of international water law and governance, producing sub-optimal cooperative strategies. The notable contributions of Ken Conca and the Maryland School’s research on the contestation of norms occurring at different levels of scale, and Anthony Turton’s Hydropolitical Complex (HPC), will be examined through a Constructivist theoretical lens, in terms of their applicability to furthering an understanding of multi-level normative frameworks. Through the use of the Orange-Senqu River basin, and the Nile Equatorial Lakes sub-basin (NELSB) as case studies, it is argued that norm convergence is possible, and is occurring in both case studies analysed, although to varying degrees as a result of different causal factors and different biophysical, historical, socio-political and cultural contexts. This is demonstrated through an examination of regional dynamics and domestic political milieus. Notwithstanding their varying degrees of water demand, Orange-Senqu and NELSB riparians present fairly different political identities, each containing existing constellations of norms, which have affected the ways in which they have responded to the influence of external norms, how the norm is translated at the local level and to what extent it is incorporated into state policy. In so doing, the interface between international norms and regional/domestic norms will be explored in an attempt to understand which norms gain acceptance and why. It is therefore advocated that a multi-level interpretation of norm development in Africa’s hydropolitics is essential to an understanding of the interconnectedness of context, interests and identities. Each level of scale, from the international to the subnational, give meaning to how norms are translated and socialised, and how they in turn, transform contexts.

Southern Africa generally has an arid climate and many hydrologists are predicting an increase in water scarcity over time. This research seeks to understand the implications of this in socio-political terms. The study is cross-disciplinary, examining how policy interventions can be used to solve the problem caused by the interaction between hydrology and demography. The conclusion is that water scarcity is not the actual problem, but is perceived as the problem by policy-makers. Instead, water scarcity is the manifestation of the problem, with root causes being a combination of climate change, population growth and misallocation of water within the economy due to a desire for national self-sufficiency in agriculture. The solution lies in the trade of products with a high water content, also known as 'virtual water'. Research on this specific issue is called for by the White Paper on Water Policy for South Africa. / Political Sciences / M.A. (International Politics)

Southern Africa generally has an arid climate and many hydrologists are predicting an increase in water scarcity over time. This research seeks to understand the implications of this in socio-political terms. The study is cross-disciplinary, examining how policy interventions can be used to solve the problem caused by the interaction between hydrology and demography. The conclusion is that water scarcity is not the actual problem, but is perceived as the problem by policy-makers. Instead, water scarcity is the manifestation of the problem, with root causes being a combination of climate change, population growth and misallocation of water within the economy due to a desire for national self-sufficiency in agriculture. The solution lies in the trade of products with a high water content, also known as 'virtual water'. Research on this specific issue is called for by the White Paper on Water Policy for South Africa. / Political Sciences / M.A. (International Politics)