Management of water resources in South Africa: A review

In South Africa, there are many challenges regarding water management. Inadequate rainfall, may contribute to mismanagement, hence political breakdowns and racial groups do also contribute to the problem. To list some of the major challenges for effective management are: limited physical resources, a long cycle of inadequate rainfall, a rapid growing population, and stagnant economies. Water resource management is crucial for human security. In South Africa, almost everyone is affected by mismanagement of water resource, hence those living in poor area are the most affected as they do not have access to potable water and proper sanitation. Many policy-makers, researchers, and water managers advocate that water must be managed at the level of river basins, based on the argument that river basins are a ‘‘natural’’ unit and thus the logical unit for water management. Although stakeholder participation in water management is advocated, actually including the poor and achieving substantive stakeholder representation has proven elusive in practice. More often than not, participation is little more than token consultation, with no decision-making power in the hands of the people concerned? Too often, the participation discourse draws attention away from the very real social and economic differences between people and the need for the redistribution of resources, entitlements, and opportunities. This is typified by the definition of stakeholders as water.Keywords: Water, management, resources, stakeholder, population, economy

Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus Inhibits Staphylococcus aureus Biofilm Formation and Invasion into Human Epithelial Cells

Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus HD100 is a predatory bacterium that attacks many Gram-negative human pathogens. A serious drawback of this strain, however, is its ineffectiveness against Gram-positive strains, such as the human pathogen Staphylococcus aureus. Here we demonstrate that the extracellular proteases produced by a host-independent B. bacteriovorus (HIB) effectively degrade/inhibit the formation of S. aureus biofilms and reduce its virulence. A 10% addition of HIB supernatant caused a 75% or greater reduction in S. aureus biofilm formation as well as 75% dispersal of pre-formed biofilms. LC-MS-MS analyses identified various B. bacteriovorus proteases within the supernatant, including the serine proteases Bd2269 and Bd2321. Tests with AEBSF confirmed that serine proteases were active in the supernatant and that they impacted S. aureus biofilm formation. The supernatant also possessed a slight DNAse activity. Furthermore, treatment of planktonic S. aureus with the supernatant diminished its ability to invade MCF-10a epithelial cells by 5-fold but did not affect the MCF-10a viability. In conclusion, this study illustrates the hitherto unknown ability of B. bacteriovorus to disperse Gram-positive pathogenic biofilms and mitigate their virulence.open6