M.Arch.(Professional), Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, University of the Witwatersrand, 2010 / The world’s oceans, seas and coastal areas are today, in a critical state of distress,
facing a greater array of problems and dangers than ever before imagined. With
over half of the world's population living along coastal areas, there has been unprecedented
commercial and residential over development. Pollution from cities
and industry, anthropogenic waste disposal, oil spills, and intense over fi shing,
increasingly threaten living and non-living resources in the coastal and ocean
environments - adversely impacting and fundamentally changing natural ecosystems,
and even threatening human health. Marine life and vital coastal habitats
are straining under the increasing pressure of deteriorating sea water quality and
the cumulative eff ects of excessive human use.
The ability of marine ecosystems to produce the economic and ecological goods
and services that we desire and need, have been substantially reduced. In some
instances there has been a signifi cant decline of ocean wildlife and even collapses
of entire ocean ecosystems. It is clearly evident that what we once considered to
be inexhaustible and resilient is, in fact, fi nite and fragile.
It is however, only through a high level and intense form of research and understanding,
that we as human beings can begin to understand the ways in which we
can help conserve such a system. Only once we understand the eff ect we are having
on such an ecosystem, can we begin to understand the ways in which we need
to change. It is only through research, and consequently conservation, that we
will be able to identify how a relationship between human beings and the natural
world can exist in a sustainable and symbiotic relationship.
This thesis will explore how a man-made artifi cial intervention can and must have
a signifi cant impact on the environment in which it sits, both directly and indirectly.
Through the establishment of a rich research and conservation hub within a
bio diverse ecosystem, a symbiotic relationship, whereby two completely diff erent
systems work together to ensure the sustainability of the whole, is established
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/11038 |
| Date | 17 January 2012 |
| Creators | Janks, Ryan |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
Page generated in 0.002 seconds