Sustainable urban water management in Cape Town, South Africa: is it a pipe dream?

The City of Cape Town (South Africa) faces numerous challenges in respect of water supply, drainage and sanitation services. It is hypothesised that the potential for long term sustainability in urban water systems can be established through the application of a five component sustainability index. This paper describes the development of such an index, the “Sustainability Index for Integrated Urban Water Management” (SIUWM), for specific application to southern African cities. It reviews the results from initial testing of the index on Cape Town, discusses its usefulness in terms of sustainability assessment, and provides a way forward for continuation of the research. It concludes that, by drawing on the numerous connections that link the different aspects of urban water management, the SIUWM is able to highlight several critical areas of “unsustainability” in the City and shows that sustainability will remain a pipe dream if these challenges are not addressed systematically and urgently

Stormwater harvesting: Improving water security in South Africa’s urban areas

The drought experienced in South Africa in 2016 – one of the worst in decades – has left many urbanised parts of the country with limited access to water, and food production has been affected. If a future water crisis is to be averted, the country needs to conserve current water supplies, reduce its reliance on conventional surface water schemes, and seek alternative sources of water supply. Within urban areas, municipalities must find ways to adapt to, and mitigate the threats from, water insecurity resulting from, inter alia, droughts, climate change and increasing water demand driven by population growth and rising standards of living. Stormwater harvesting (SWH) is one possible alternative water resource that could supplement traditional urban water supplies, as well as simultaneously offer a range of social and environmental benefits. We set out three position statements relating to how SWH can: improve water security and increase resilience to climate change in urban areas; prevent frequent flooding; and provide additional benefits to society. We also identify priority research areas for the future in order to target and support the appropriate uptake of SWH in South Africa, including testing the viability of SWH through the use of real-time control and managed aquifer recharge

Approaching community-level greywater managementin non-sewered settlements in South Africa

This study investigates sustainable options for community-level management of greywater in low-income settlements without on-site waterborne sanitation in South Africa. As a consequence of the limited resource base of both the local authorities and the inhabitants of the settlements, these options need to be inexpensive, technologically simple and socially acceptable. A variety of social and technological options are thus being implemented in collaboration with the inhabitants and the local authorities, and their efficacy evaluated. The hypothesis is that involving the inhabitants in the development of solutions is likely to be more effective in the management of greywater in these settlements than the traditional approach where the local authorities provide rudimentary engineered services after minimal consultation. Following an initial scoping study that covered six of the nine provinces of South Africa, four settlements in the Western Cape Province were selected for a second, more detailed study. The study employs the Participatory Action Research (PAR) method which emphasises participation, collaboration and consensual decision-making with the goal of ensuring long term sustainability of social and technological interventions

What do hearing healthcare professionals do to promote hearing aid use and benefit among adults? A systematic review

Objective: To conduct a systematic review of the evidence in relation to what hearing healthcare professionals do during hearing aid consultations and identifying which behaviours promote hearing aid use and benefit among adult patients. Design: Searches were performed in electronic databases MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, PsycInfo, Web of Science, PubMed and Google Scholar. The Crowe Critical Appraisal Tool and Melnyk Levels of Evidence were used to assess quality and level of evidence of eligible studies. Behaviours of hearing healthcare professionals were summarised descriptively. Study Sample: 17 studies met the inclusion criteria. Results: Twelve studies described behaviours of audiologists and five studies were intervention studies. Audiologists were typically task- or technically-oriented and/or dominated the interaction during hearing aid consultations. Two intervention studies suggested that use of motivational interviewing techniques by audiologists may increase hearing aid use in patients. Conclusions: Most studies of clinicians’ behaviours were descriptive, with very little research linking clinician behaviour to patient outcomes. The present review sets the research agenda for better-controlled intervention studies to identify which clinician behaviours better promote patient hearing aid outcomes and develop an evidence base for best clinical practice

Tracking the global distribution of persistent organic pollutants accounting for e-waste exports to developing regions

Elevated concentrations of various industrial-use Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), have been reported in some developing areas in subtropical and tropical regions known to be destinations of e-waste. We used a recent inventory of the global generation and exports of e-waste to develop various global scale emission scenarios for industrial-use organic contaminants (IUOCs). For representative IUOCs (RIUOCs), only hypothetical emissions via passive volatilization from e-waste were considered whereas for PCBs, historical emissions throughout the chemical life-cycle (i.e., manufacturing, use, disposal) were included. The environmental transport and fate of RIUOCs and PCBs were then simulated using the BETR Global 2.0 model. Export of e-waste is expected to increase and sustain global emissions beyond the baseline scenario, which assumes no export. A comparison between model predictions and observations for PCBs in selected recipient regions generally suggests a better agreement when exports are accounted for. This study may be the first to integrate the global transport of IUOCs in waste with their long-range transport in air and water. The results call for integrated chemical management strategies on a global scale

Epidemiology of the extent of recreational noise exposure and hearing protection use: cross-sectional survey in a nationally representative UK adult population sample

From Springer Nature via Jisc Publications RouterHistory: received 2019-12-05, accepted 2020-09-23, registration 2020-09-24, online 2020-10-09, pub-electronic 2020-10-09, collection 2020-12Publication status: PublishedFunder: National Institute for Health Research; doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100000272Abstract: Background: Hearing loss is prevalent and disabling, yet little is known about the extent of recreational noise exposure and hearing protection use. The aim of the present research was to estimate the extent of recreational noise exposure and hearing protection use in a sample representative of the UK adult population. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional survey of 10,401 UK adults who were representative of the population. Results: More than 7000 people (n = 7590, 73.0%) reported exposure to recreational noise excluding headphone and earphone use in the last 12 months. Just 158 people (2.1%) reported wearing hearing protection for every noisy recreational activity. Age (younger people) and beliefs of a behavioral (as opposed to genetic) cause of hearing loss were predictive of both higher recreational noise exposure and greater hearing protection use. Men were more exposed to recreational noise but women were less likely to use hearing protection. Conclusions: For the first time, the present research quantifies the recreational noise exposure and low levels of hearing protection use in a representative sample of the UK population. The biggest public health gains are likely to be achieved through interventions targeted at younger people and in explaining behavioral (as opposed to genetic) causes of hearing loss

Reconstructing palaeoclimate and hydrological fluctuations in the Fezzan Basin (southern Libya) since 130 ka: a catchment-based approach

We propose a novel method to evaluate regional palaeoclimate that can be used to alleviate the problems caused by the discontinuous nature of palaeoenvironmental data found in deserts. The technique involves processing satellite imagery and DEM’s to map past rivers, catchments and evaluate the areas and volumes of palaeolakes. This information is used to determine the new Lake Evaluation Index (LEI) that allows a qualitative estimate of the amount of sediment received by lakes and how long-lived those lakes are. Lakes with considerable longevity and large sediment stores are selected for study. Validation is performed using image interpretation of remote sensing data, UltraGPR surveys and fieldwork. These techniques are also used to identify and study spring deposits and fluvial landforms that provide valuable palaeoclimate information. The method is applied to the Fezzan Basin in southern Libya focusing on the Wadi ash Shati and Wadi el-Agial catchments. Results indicate that the palaeohydrology is accurately mapped except within dune fields. We analysed the sedimentology of the key deposits identified by this methodology, developing a chronology using optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) and radiocarbon dating. We find evidence for relatively humid conditions during MIS 5c/d and e, as well as during the early to middle Holocene. Larger lakes and more extensive river systems were present during MIS 5 than are found during the Holocene, suggestive of greater humidity. The Holocene humid period started at ~11 ka and continued until ~5 ka being interrupted by abrupt periods of aridity at ~8.2 ka and ~6 ka that coincide with North Atlantic cooling. After each of these arid events the climate was less humid than previously, suggesting that they were superimposed upon an overall drying trend. The termination of the Holocene humid period in the Sahara has received much scrutiny in recent years, and sediments of Palaeolake Shati provide a continuous record of this. We do not find evidence to support the hypothesis of either sudden or gradual aridification of the Sahara at ~5 ka, instead we find that that aridity started to develop at ~6.5 ka, whereupon the lake levels oscillated until finally drying-up by 5.3 ka. Most of the other lakes in the Fezzan also dried up at ~ 5ka. We suggest that thousands of years of aridification prior to 5 ka shrunk these lakes so that additional aridity at this time led to their final desiccation. Because lakes are prodigious dust sources this mechanism potentially explains the rapid rise in dust flux to the Atlantic at 5 ka, with this final drying being the culmination of longer term aridity, albeit overprinted with considerable climate variability