Groundwater management issues in Southern Africa – An IWRM perspective

In contrast to its strategic role as essential resource to help achieve community development and poverty alleviation in the Southern African Development Community (SADC), groundwater has remained a poorly understood and managed resource. This was the finding of a scoping study regarding the status of groundwater resources management in SADC. The key premise for the assessment was that groundwater resource management must take place within an IWRM framework and the IWRM Toolbox developed by the Global Water Partnership was used as the scope and content for the assessment. The SADC region has well- developed policies for regional development and IWRM, as well as a relatively strong focus on groundwater resources. This article questions whether problems relating to Africa’s sustainable utilisation and management of groundwater is a unique groundwater problem or must also be related to the challenges experienced in general with the implementation of an IWRM approach in Africa. A key finding was that groundwater management links to groundwater-dependent sectors like agriculture, rural development, health and environment are not well- established in policy or in practice. Internationally, there is a recognition, that such a, quite common, situation can only be addressed through a long-term process through which viable national, regional and local systems can evolve, within a strategic framework in which these intended relationships between diverse sets of interventions or management approaches and the development goals are brought out. However, such a strategic, multi-stakeholder-driven approach also still remains the major challenge in Africa for IWRM implementation as a whole. Recent continent-wide initiatives, like the development of IWRM and water efficiency plans for each country and multi-stakeholder water dialogue processes, have been taken to address this challenge. It is therefore crucial that groundwater becomes an integral part of these and related initiatives. New AMCOW and SADC initiatives for groundwater provide a major opportunity to achieve this.Web of Scienc

Groundwater management issues in Southern Africa – An IWRM perspective

In contrast to its strategic role as essential resource to help achieve community development and poverty alleviation in the Southern African Development Community (SADC), groundwater has remained a poorly understood and managed resource. This was the finding of a scoping study regarding the status of groundwater resources management in SADC. The key premise for the assessment was that groundwater resource management must take place within an IWRM framework and the IWRM Toolbox developed by the Global Water Partnership was used as the scope and content for the assessment. The SADC region has well- developed policies for regional development and IWRM, as well as a relatively strong focus on groundwater resources. This article questions whether problems relating to Africa’s sustainable utilisation and management of groundwater is a unique groundwater problem or must also be related to the challenges experienced in general with the implementation of an IWRM approach in Africa. A key finding was that groundwater management links to groundwater-dependent sectors like agriculture, rural development, health and environment are not well- established in policy or in practice. Internationally, there is a recognition, that such a, quite common, situation can only be addressed through a long-term process through which viable national, regional and local systems can evolve, within a strategic framework in which these intended relationships between diverse sets of interventions or management approaches and the development goals are brought out. However, such a strategic, multi-stakeholder-driven approach also still remains the major challenge in Africa for IWRM implementation as a whole. Recent continent-wide initiatives, like the development of IWRM and water efficiency plans for each country and multi-stakeholder water dialogue processes, have been taken to address this challenge. It is therefore crucial that groundwater becomes an integral part of these and related initiatives. New AMCOW and SADC initiatives for groundwater provide a major opportunity to achieve this.Keywords: groundwater, community development, sustainable utilisation and management, IWR

NEPAD Southern African Water Centres of Excellence - Report on task JLP1.1 and JLP1.2

The NEPAD SANWATCE network investigation in collaboration with the European Commission Joint Research Centre looks into the skills shortages that exist in the SADC region in water resources management, and further discusses how the Water Centres of Excellence could better address sector expertise and advocacy for sector development in the region.JRC.H.1-Water Resource

Listening carefully: increased perceptual acuity for species discrimination in multispecies signalling assemblages

Communication is a fundamental component of evolutionary change because of its role in mate choice and sexual selection. Acoustic signals are a vital element of animal communication and sympatric species may use private frequency bands to facilitate intraspecific communication and identification of conspecifics (acoustic communication hypothesis, ACH). If so, animals should show increasing rates of misclassification with increasing overlap in frequency between their own calls and those used by sympatric heterospecifics. We tested this on the echolocation of the horseshoe bat, Rhinolophus capensis, using a classical habituation-dishabituation experiment in which we exposed R. capensis from two phonetic populations to echolocation calls of sympatric and allopatric horseshoe bat species (Rhinolophus clivosus and Rhinolophus damarensis) and different phonetic populations of R. capensis. As predicted by the ACH, R. capensis from both test populations were able to discriminate between their own calls and calls of the respective sympatric horseshoe bat species. However, only bats from one test population were able to discriminate between calls of allopatric heterospecifics and their own population when both were using the same frequency. The local acoustic signalling assemblages (ensemble of signals from sympatric conspecifics and heterospecifics) of the two populations differed in complexity as a result of contact with other phonetic populations and sympatric heterospecifics. We therefore propose that a hierarchy of discrimination ability has evolved within the same species. Frequency alone may be sufficient to assess species membership in relatively simple acoustic assemblages but the ability to use additional acoustic cues may have evolved in more complex acoustic assemblages to circumvent misidentifications as a result of the use of overlapping signals. When the acoustic signal design is under strong constraints as a result of dual functions and the available acoustic space is limited because of co-occurring species, species discrimination is mediated through improved sensory acuity in the receiver

The role of ground water in Sub-Saharan Africa

Although water resources managers speak of a water crisis in Africa, the management of ground water has to date not featured strongly in national and regional African water agendas. Examination of the physical environment of the continent and, in particular, the water resources in relation to the socioeconomic landscape and regional development challenges makes it clear that widely occurring, albeit largely low-yielding, ground water resources will be crucial in the achievement of water security and development. Ground water is important primarily in domestic water and sanitation services, but also for other local productive needs like community gardens, stock watering, and brick-making, all essential to secure a basic livelihood and thus to alleviate poverty. Despite the importance of small-scale farming in Africa, there is little information on the present and potential role of ground water in agriculture. In contrast to its socioeconomic and ecological importance, ground water has remained a poorly understood and managed resource. Widespread contamination of ground water resources is occurring, and the important environmental services of ground water are neglected. There appear to be critical shortcomings in the organizational framework and the building of institutional capacity for ground water. Addressing this challenge will require a much clearer understanding and articulation of ground water’s role and contribution to national and regional development objectives and an integrated management framework, with topdown facilitation of local actions.Web of Scienc

Therapeutic drug monitoring-based dose optimisation of piperacillin/tazobactam to improve outcome in patients with sepsis (TARGET): a prospective, multi-centre, randomised controlled trial

Background: Sepsis is a life-threatening organ dysfunction caused by a dysregulated host response to infection with a hospital mortality in excess of 40%. Along with insufficient and delayed empirical antimicrobial therapy, inappropriate antimicrobial exposure has been identified to negatively affect patient outcomes. Receipt of prolonged infusion (i.e. extended or continuous infusion) of piperacillin/tazobactam (TZP) improves antimicrobial exposure and is associated with reduced mortality in patients with sepsis. Using therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) with dosing tailored to the altered pharmacokinetics of the individual patient to avoid under-and overdosing may be a further strategy to improve patient outcomes. This current trial will address the question whether a TDM-guided therapy with TZP administered by continuous infusion will result in a greater resolution of organ dysfunction and hence better clinical outcome compared to continuous infusion of the total daily dose of TZP without TDM. Methods: The study is an investigator-initiated, multi-centre, parallel-group, single-blinded, randomised controlled trial. The trial will be conducted in several centres across Germany. Adult patients (aged >= 18 years) with severe sepsis or septic shock will be eligible for study participation. Participants will be randomly assigned to receive either TZP by continuous infusion guided by daily TDM of piperacillin (experimental group) or by continuous infusion without TDM guidance (total daily dose in normal renal function 13.5 g TZP) (control group). The pharmacokinetic (PK)/ pharmacodynamic (PD) target will be 100% f T->4MIC (percentage of time during a dosing interval that the free [f] drug concentration exceeds 4 times the minimum inhibitory concentration). The primary efficacy endpoint is the change in mean total Sequential Organ Failure Assessment score from day 1 after randomisation until day 10 or discharge from the intensive care unit or death, whichever comes first. Secondary outcomes include mortality, clinical cure, microbiological cure, overall antibiotic use, individual components of the primary outcome, adverse events and analysis of PK and (PD) indices. Discussion: This trial will assess for the first time whether continuous infusion of TZP guided by daily TDM in patients with sepsis will result in a greater resolution of organ dysfunction and hence better clinical outcome compared to continuous infusion without TDM