The challenges facing sustainable and adaptive groundwater management in South Africa

Long-term population growth and economic development are placing ever-increasing pressure on South Africa’s freshwater supply. On the basis of the current climate change predictions, which often entail uncertain consequences for aquifer systems and the associated groundwater goods and services, it is expected that the stress on water will increase even further. Currently, South Africa’s groundwater governance regime does not provide the capacity to assure effective and sustainable resource regulation and allocation. To date, the management of groundwater is hampered by a variety of uncertainties, such as global climate change and socio-economic growth, as well as ineffective governance structures affecting resource use, regulation, protection and the implementation of alternative strategies needed to achieve sustainable management. This paper presents the results of a qualitative assessment of interviews conducted with experts in South Africa. Four key challenges are identified to the development of adaptive and sustainable groundwater management and the successful implementation of current water legislation in South Africa. These are: the undervaluation of groundwater importance and significance; the need for expertise and information at all scales; the centralisation of power; and the disregard of ecosystems and the associated goods and services. As a means to tackle these challenges, it has been assumed that the concept of adaptive water management represents a suitable approach to governing groundwater resources, by taking into account complex system linkages between hydrogeological, political, socio-economic and environmental domains. Supporting principles, such as tools for cooperation, participation and information networks, have been developed to facilitate the implementation of adaptive water management approaches and hence to achieve institutional change in the political arena of groundwater management.Keywords: groundwater, South Africa, ecosystem services, adaptive water management, qualitative assessmen

Sustainability as a Driver in Forestry‐Related Services

Rising environmental consciousness has shifted the focus of small-scale forestry away from productive functions towards more diversified ownership objectives. From transition management perspective, we analyze the role of private sector voluntary sustainability initiatives as a system driver in forestry, and review research on the role of sustainability in forestry-related service markets. The focus is on the view of small-scale service-oriented businesses, and by drawing experiences from the Nordic context. Based on the literature review, sustainability is gaining deeper level interest and active engagement among small scale forest owners due to, perhaps first and foremost, increasing awareness on global sustainability challenges, and the role of forests in these. A challenge remains in diffusion of the sustainability-related niche innovations. In addition, the strong environmental-economic emphasis in sustainability may lead to the undervaluing the potential of some socially driven forest ecosystem services. The effectiveness of new methods, such as framing as a tool to nudge family owners towards more sustainable forestry practices, provides avenues for future experimentation and research.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Organisation and Governanc