This thesis attempted to examine the enabling conditions of existing South African water law and its implementation by the appropriate authorities. The Cape Town Municipality's management over water supply and services is included in this study. The research attempted to expose any shortcomings that might be prevalent in the new water law. The water allocation mechanism of the transformed water legislation and the water demands within various competing water user sectors of the community, such as those pertaining to agriculture and industry, was also explored.

Integrated water management is a wicked public policy problem with no clear path to resolution. This dissertation is an in-depth qualitative comparative analysis of two collaborative governance processes created to tackle complex water problems in New Zealand and Oregon, U.S.A. Both cases convened a wide range of state and non-state actors in efforts to find common ground, build consensus for change, and develop innovative water policy solutions. The goal of this comparative case study analysis is to gain a better understanding of collaborative network governance frameworks as applied to integrated water management and primary factors for success. The proposition posits that collaborative networks involving public, private, and non-profit actors are better equipped than government-driven efforts to develop desired outcomes. To test this proposition, the research questions probe the role of state and non-state policy actors, conditions for collaboration, strength of actor ties, development of trust and social capital, barriers to success, and the role of climate change as a policy driver in these two case studies. The comparative case study analysis yields fascinating insights that adds to the network governance literature. In the New Zealand case, a collaborative-led process called the Land and Water Forum (LAWF) showed that this ongoing network offers benefits to creating consensus on complex water issues. LAWF succeeded in moving policy conversations forward where previous government-led efforts had failed. Within the LAWF collaborative network, non-state actors formed strong ties; however, relationships with state actors exhibited weaker ties. With Oregon's integrated water policy, a collaborative network approach created a more conducive environment for meaningful dialogue among vested interests, and built some levels of interdependency and trust, thus generating a wider array of policy options than through previous legislative and bureaucratic efforts. However, long-standing political, legal, and institutional challenges continue to constrain effective integrated water management and the delivery of integrated outcomes in Oregon. The Oregon case did not exhibit strong leadership within the collaborative to broker challenging policy issues. Also, it faced implementation challenges as one state agency was given responsibility for stewarding integrated water management but lacked authority for implementation or coordination with other state agencies. Overcoming fragmented natural resource governance arrangements remains a daunting challenge. This research revealed three key findings: (1) in both cases, collaborative network governance worked well for framing and designing new integrated water policies, but encountered implementation challenges; (2) managing the complexities around the intersection of top-down, vertical command and control governance with horizontal collaborative approaches remains an ongoing challenge to New Public Governance; and (3) the two cases represent examples of the use of formal and informal processes for policy development. The benefits of collaborative governance for policy development are substantial, and the limitations appear to be obstacles to overcome and not fatal flaws. The main challenge lies in transitioning from policy and planning to implementing changes on the ground affecting the way we manage water today and in the future.

Thesis (MSc. (Agricultural Economics)) -- University of Limpopo, 2011 / In-field rainwater harvesting technology is the technique that combines the advantages of water harvesting, no till, basin tillage and mulching on high drought risk clay soils. It reduces total runoff to zero, and also considerably reduce surface evaporation. The scarcity of agricultural water is increasing at a faster rate than for other sectors in Limpopo Province. Sufficient, clean drinking water is essential to life, but millions of people throughout the world including South Africa continue to have no access to this basic necessity. This study aimed at investigating the extent and nature of adoption of in-field rainwater harvesting technology by households in Lambani village of Limpopo Province. The main objectives of this study were to identify factors determining the in-field rainwater adoption technology for cropland productivity in Lambani village and to determine the extent to which in-field rainwater harvesting adoption influences cropland productivity in Lambani village. Simple random sampling technique was used to select 70 farmers in Lambani village of Limpopo Province. Data was collected using a structured questionnaire. Descriptive statistics, logistic regression model and linear regression model were used to analyse the data. Descriptive statistics was used to describe the characteristics of households and the nature of Lambani village, and logistic regression model was used to investigate factors that determine the adoption of infield rainwater harvesting technology, while linear regression model was used to determine the extent to which in-field rainwater harvesting influence the cropland productivity in Lambani village. The results from the logistic regression model indicate that 5 variables out of 10 variables are significant in explaining farmers’ adoption decision. Land size, access to financial service, access to information and contact with extension officer are some of the variables that have significantly positive effects on the adoption of infield rainwater harvesting technology, while hired labour has significantly negative correlation with adoption. Variables such as household size, level of education, age of the household, level of income and the main water source do not significantly influence adoption of in-field rainwater harvesting. This information will help prioritize

Shortage of drinking water in most parts of the world has been a growing concern in recent times. The situation has been getting worse in underdeveloped and developing countries due to sudden explosion in population growth and the growth in the industries. The natural resources for potable water are limited and unless a feasible solution is obtained in the near future, the ‘concern situation’ may turn into a ‘panic situation’. A possible solution for the shortage in drinking water is to use water from inexhaustible sources such as oceans and seas and make it potable using desalination process. However, the process of desalination is an energy intensive process which the poor countries can not afford. In recent times, the cost of fossil fuels has been skyrocketing. With the crude oil costing more than Rs.5200 (US$120) a barrel as on September 2008, even the rich countries like USA and the countries in the European Union are feeling the pinch of the energy cost. Alternate energy sources such as solar, wind, geo-thermal, hydrogen etc., have become the order of the day. These sources are renewable and are environmental friendly. More than one third of the populations of the world live in coastal areas. These areas get abundant amount of solar energy throughout the year. Utilization of this energy in desalination process would solve drinking water problem to a very great extent. However, construction of centralized desalination plants requires large amount of capital which the poor countries can ill-afford. An alternate solution would be to construct decentralized smaller plants that would require smaller capital to construct and easier to maintain. If the energy requirement is tapped from renewable sources such as solar, then the operational cost also becomes affordable for the poor countries. By taking care of the water requirement of the coastal areas through this process, one may save large amounts of money in transporting potable water from interior areas to the coastal areas. There would be enough water for the people living in the interior areas. The water bed level in the interior areas would gradually increase, thereby reducing the drinking water concerns significantly. In this thesis, a small scale stand alone power generation system for the desalination process is proposed that is suitable to provide clean potable water from sources such as sea water or brackish water. Solar energy is proposed as a source of energy for the proposed desalination system. This source is available in plenty in arid and semi-arid areas. It is free and is also friendlier to the environment. It is proposed to use solar energy in thermal form to obtain energy equivalent of ‘latent heat of vaporization’ for the vaporization process and in electrical form for operating the dc machines and electronic control units that are integral parts of the desalination system. The proposed desalination unit can be built as small as possible even to feed a single household’s requirement and hence can be conceptualized as decentralized units. These units would require considerably less capital to build, and would require minimum maintenance. The desalination process is based on flash evaporation wherein a heated liquid is subjected to a pressure reduction by passing through a throttling device resulting in an initially superheated state. In the proposed desalination process, the traditional flash evaporator is extended to include continuous dynamic pressure modulation to obtain an optimal flow rate for a specified energy input. The cost function or the performance index for optimization is defined as the ratio of flow rate to the energy spent. The optimal flow rate occurs at a specific chamber pressure for a given inlet water temperature. By operating at optimal pressure, significant energy is saved for a specific flow rate. This principle is validated experimentally and the results are presented and discussed in the thesis. This proposed scheme along with hybrid energy input will prove to be an attractive solution for community drinking water problem. A system needs to have a mathematical representation in order to predict the dynamic behavior of the system. This thesis proposes the bond graph method of modeling the physical system wherein the energy flow across the electrical, thermal and the hydraulic domains are included. A system may comprise of several subsystems and the energy flow in each subsystem may be in a different domain. A desalination system is such a system wherein the energy flow in subsystems is in different domains such as electrical, thermal and hydraulics. The bond graph approach is best suited for modeling of such systems where the power/energy flow across domains can be easily and seamlessly integrated. The thesis proposes a fifth order dynamic model of a single stage flash evaporation with pressure modulation using the bond graph approach. The proposed model incorporates the effects of chamber pressure variation, the entropy flow from the chamber due to conduction, convection, radiation and also the thermal dynamics of the water bodies in the evaporation, condensation and collection chambers. The proposed model is simulated in MATLAB/Simulink environment. The simulation results are compared with the experimental results to validate the model. This proposed model can be used for both analysis and synthesis of a desalination system. The desalination system is a complex system wherein multiple energy domains are involved. The thesis presents a systematic process for the design of the desalination system. Design of the desalination system involves design of multi domain subsystems. The design becomes much more complex if the energy source to run the system is solar/ hybrid solar based. The energy budget has to be carefully evaluated considering the worst case conditions for the availability of solar energy. Hence, the information on the quantum of solar energy available at any location is a critical parameter needed for design of the desalination system. A generic method of developing a solar insolation model for a specific region such as the Indian sub-continent is proposed in this thesis along with the validation of the model by comparing measured value with the values that are obtained from the model. As the insolation model is dependent on the water vapor content in the vertical column at the location, the methodology is further applied to develop a model for estimating the precipitated water vapor content in a vertical column for any location. The model is validated by comparing the computed values to the measured values. The thesis further presents the design and selection of the balance of the system. The selection of the balance of the system includes sizing of solar thermal plate collectors such as flat plate for pre-heating and paraboloid for vaporization, solar PV panels for operating pumps, actuator and control units, and battery for backup source for night loads and during ‘no-sun days’, criteria of selecting centrifugal pump for circulating condensation water, vacuum pump for dynamic pressure modulation and selecting linear actuator for Sun tracking of the paraboloid concentrator. A discussion on the electronic circuits used in the control scheme is presented in this thesis. This includes the circuit for maximum power point tracking, circuit for DC-DC conversion, circuit for pressure modulation, circuit for speed control of linear actuator, and finally the circuit for water level limiter. A discussion on the life cycle costing is also presented in this thesis. This is an important parameter that refers to the accumulated worth of all the costs related to building and operating the desalination plant during its life span. It is emphasized that the objective of the design process is to minimize the life cycle cost while meeting other performance requirements. Thus, life cycle costing is an essential part of the design cycle. The design methodology and the approach used to design the desalination system are implemented in the form of a toolbox in the MATLAB environment. The various functions of the toolbox are highlighted by a detailed step by step presentation of the design modules in the thesis. The modules form the components of the design toolbox for designing the proposed desalination system.

Over the last couple of decades, a significant amount of research has been carried out on rural water supplies in developing countries, and have identified the fact that the communal water supply model is not sustainable everywhere, especially in sparsely populated rural areas; factors obstructing sustainability include lack of spare parts, management systems and private/public capacity. Despite their enormous contribution to the water sector, the extant studies stay within the subsidized communal water supply and capacity building, post construction support or management system. In other words, very few studies have been done into household (private) level water supply. The Self Supply model is an approach which provides support to households/communities to complement their efforts and accelerate sustainable access to safe water incrementally through improvement to traditional water sources (hand dug wells) by putting in their own investment. The Self Supply model may give significant benefits for sustainable safe water supplies, especially in sparsely populated rural areas, in comparison with the communal water supply though to date there has been little monitoring and systematic analysis of what impact these changes have made at the grassroots level. The standpoint of this study is pragmatic, and herein, mixing quantitative and qualitative methods was justified in order to design the research methodologies. The research was conducted in the Luapula Province of Zambia using a concurrent triangulation strategy to offset the weakness inherent within one method with the strengths of the other. The data was collected through inventory and sanitary surveys, water quality testing, household surveys, document analyses, focus group discussions and key informant interviews to determine the most appropriate water supply model for safe, accessible, sustainable, cost-effective and acceptable water supplies for households in sparsely populated rural areas of Zambia. The principal argument of this study is that reliance only on a communal water supply model limits the achievement of increased sustainable access to a safe water supply; hence a Self Supply model is needed which does not compete with the communal models but works alongside them in sparsely populated rural areas of developing countries for the purpose of increasing access and achieving sustainability. It was strongly defended by the overall findings that a Self Supply model could significantly reduce the faecal contamination risk in water quality and deliver a higher per capita water use and better convenience of access than the communal model; however its reliability with respect to the water source drying up needs to be monitored. Further, this does not mean that the communal model is not sustainable anywhere, rather that it is important to build blocks for a sustainable environment to access safe water in a symbiotic way between the communal and Self Supply models under the condition that the government and NGOs/external support agencies overcome the temptation to provide a water supply to rural dwellers as a giveaway social service.

No description available.

The aim of this study is to focus on how the Vulindlela Community benefited from water supplied to them through DWAF and Umgeni Water funding with emphasis on the sustainability of the project. The study also aims to find out from Vulindlela Community whether the scheme met its objectives. The sample consists of 2 888 respondents from Vulindlela area. The measuring instruments used are the interviews and questionnaire constructed by the researcher. The results of this study indicate that all the objectives of the scheme were met and that the community especially women, unemployed men and local contractors all benefited from the project. The issue of sustainability of the scheme is the real problem. The community (Branch Officers, local plumbers, meter readers and committees) has been trained in handling water related issues but the community has not accepted the ownership of the scheme. If the ownership of the scheme is lacking, there will be problems throughout. The non-payment of water used by the community will continue to be a problem if the community itself does not take the ownership of running and maintaining it. The community needs to be empowered and be trained on the operation and maintenance (OM cost recoveries and the tariff structure. The results also indicate that the community understands the free water policy and that most of them are using less than 6 kilolitres per month. The willingness to pay from the community is low, to such an extent that most of the households are due for disconnections or restriction. This is supported by the fact that most of them are earning less than RI 000 - 00 per month and in some households the bread winner is an elderly person who is dependent on government grants. The 6 kilolitre free water is not sustainable under the conditions, which this community find themselves in. There are challenges facing the scheme and these are discussed under Chapter 5. Since some limitations of this study were found, the results must be interpreted with caution and one should be cautious in applying them. / Thesis (M.B.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2005.

South African legislation, as summarised in The Strategic Framework for Water Services (Department of Water Affairs and Forestry, 2003), makes local authorities responsible for all water services to individual consumers. As Water Services Authorities (WSAs), municipalities must appoint Water Services Providers (WSPs) to implement water services. The legislation allows a range of organisations to act as WSPs. The Strategic Framework also lays down norms and standards with regards to continuity of water supplies and water quality. The country has adopted a policy of "Free Basic Water", which requires WSAs to provide a basic level of services free of charge. Six kilolitres per household per month is the norm adopted by most municipalities. In deciding on the institutional arrangements for the provISIon of water serVIces, municipalities need to decide what functions, if any, to outsource. Most international literature that reviews experiences of the International Water Decade advocates community management of rural water supplies, pointing to failures of government run, centralised management of rural schemes. A strong reason given for choosing community management is the sense of "ownership" this gives to local communities. Traditional theories on management by government organisations use a "steering" model, in which the government sets the course for policy and administrators implement the policies decided upon. Since the 1980s, a new paradigm for analysing government has emerged, emphasising the limits to governments' power to act as it wishes. The new model is one of networks of various interdependent organisations, often with the government at the centre. Such a model can be used to depict organisational relationships in rural areas of South Africa. In the early 1990s, a number ofNGOs implemented rural water schemes using the community management approach. However, after the passing of legislation making municipalities WSAs, very few municipalities have seriously considered community management, or any formal role for local community based organisations. Efforts to assess the effectiveness of municipalities' water service delivery IS severely hampered by a lack of usable data. Since starting to take responsibility for water schemes from DWAF and other bodies in 2000, municipalities have struggled to manage service delivery effectively, largely due to a shortage of management and technical skills. Alfred Nzo District Municipality (ANDM) is one of the poorest municipalities in the country, with high levels of poverty. Approximately 50% of the rural population have adequate water services, that is 25 litres per person available within 200 metres of the household (Smith, 2006). The operation of services is paid mainly from the municipality's equitable share from national government. This report attempts to assess the effectiveness and efficiency of community management of rural water supplies. This is done by examining ANDM's community management model as a case study. The roles and responsibilities of various actors in the programme were analysed by interviewing the Support Services Agents (SSAs) engaged to co-ordinate the programme. The effectiveness of the water services were analysed using the SSAs' monthly reports, and this was compared with other available data. The experiences of other rural municipalities were also examined, focusing on their experiences with community participation. The model used by ANDM consisted of a water committee or board for each water scheme, which supervised the work of local operators and administrators. Operators carried out minor repairs, while the SSAs did monthly servicing of pumps and motors, and implemented major repairs, largely by supervising local operators and casual labourers. Committees submitted monthly reports to the SSAs, which were used as a basis for reports from the SSAs to the municipality. SSAs also reported on water quality. The figures for continuity of supply (measuring the operability of the infrastructure) varied considerably between the three SSAs. A possible reason for low figures from one SSA was that the figures also reflected water shortages in some schemes. Figures for water quality varied more than those for continuity, leading to a concern about the extent to which sampling and testing procedures were standardised. The figures were compared with figures from attitude surveys on water services recording consumers' perceptions about continuity of supply. The difference in data being measured, and concerns about the meaning of the figures from the SSAs' reports make direct comparisons impossible. However, the data indicates that for schemes served by two of the SSAs at least, a reasonably effective service was rendered. The cost to the municipality of providing water services was R4,19 per person per month, a relatively low figure compared with other municipalities. The four KwaZulu-Natal District Municipalities interviewed all reported negative experiences with community management of rural schemes that they inherited, and all four have opted for a centralised system, one using a partnership with a water board. None of the four municipalities had systematic data on continuity of service. Despite the difficulties in comparing the performance of ANDM to that of other municipalities, it is clear that the system employed by the municipality to use community management with the support of external consultants and NGOs was workable, sustainable and efficient. The participation of local community organisations assisted in some of the common problems that beset rural water schemes such as vandalism and water wastage. The report recommends that: • Municipalities with remote rural water schemes seriously consider community management as an effective and efficient delivery mechanism. • Where community management is employed, it is backed up with effective managerial and technical support. • The Alfred Nzo District Municipality reinstate the contracts with external Support Services Agents, which were the basis of effective management of and reporting on its rural water supply programme, unless equivalent internal capacity has been acquired to do the work done by the Support Services Agents. • Water Services Providers be required by water services authorities to submit regular data on service availability, continuity of supply and water quality, and Water Services Authorities in turn be required to submit similar data to DWAF. • DWAF issues guidelines on how proper separation of regulation and implementation roles be effected between WSAs and WSPs respectively when the WSP function is carried out internally. / Thesis (M.B.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2006.

Municipalities are faced with the major task of providing water services to their local residents. Dissatisfaction regarding water services in South Africa has been manifested in protests staged by communities. However, service delivery is still reflecting a backlog. This study aims to describe the current situation and challenges facing Greater Tubatse Local Municipality and the roles of the major players regarding water services. The study indicated that the residents of Praktiseer have no sustainable potable water. The critical part of this inquiry is to establish whether the local municipality has strategies in place to deal with the identified problems. Access to clean water and sanitation is essential to health. The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa mandates the local governments to ensure the provision of water services to their communities in a sustainable manner. This study also defined the roles of the local municipality within the context of the existing legislative framework. / Thesis (M. Development and Management)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012.

Municipalities are faced with the major task of providing water services to their local residents. Dissatisfaction regarding water services in South Africa has been manifested in protests staged by communities. However, service delivery is still reflecting a backlog. This study aims to describe the current situation and challenges facing Greater Tubatse Local Municipality and the roles of the major players regarding water services. The study indicated that the residents of Praktiseer have no sustainable potable water. The critical part of this inquiry is to establish whether the local municipality has strategies in place to deal with the identified problems. Access to clean water and sanitation is essential to health. The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa mandates the local governments to ensure the provision of water services to their communities in a sustainable manner. This study also defined the roles of the local municipality within the context of the existing legislative framework. / Thesis (M. Development and Management)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012.