Water, climate change and small towns

Includes abstract.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 205-223).This thesis examines the interrelationship between “water, climate change and small towns”. The research question is framed in three parts: 1) can climate change be integrated into existing planning frameworks? 2) can small towns build resilient strategies against projected climate change impacts? and, 3) is adaptation to climate change an economic issue? It is evident that very little synergy exists between the different sectors dealing with water access. A holistic view of access and the impact of climate change does not exist in the sustainable development, urban planning and water resources management sectors. It is therefore proposed that the successful delivery of accessible water services lies with the integration of the urban planning, water resources management and climate change adaptation responses. In order to achieve this, a planning framework is introduced

Access to water - the impact of climate change in small municipalities

The key objective of this case study is to demonstrate the affect of projected climate change impacts on the local water supply of a small town and the related financial consequences in terms of water pricing and access. While the delivery of basic water services, free for the first 6kl per household per month, is driven by a national development goal, it is incumbent on local government to ensure this right. For this, the local municipality needs to ensure that water supplies meet the consumption demand, present and future. Technical and financial planning are therefore required to ensure that an undisrupted services is provided. The impact of climate change needs to be included in this planning

Qualitative assessment of municipal water resource management strategies under climate impacts: the case of the Northern Cape

This paper considers existing coping strategies in times of climate variability and proposes long term strategies for dealing with future projected climate change and variability. A qualitative strategy assessment methodology is proposed and tested for climate conditions in the Northern Cape. The analysis of the results suggests that dry sanitation, education projects and tariff structures are identified as being the most useful strategies. Key factors which were perceived to inhibit the implementation of appropriate drought adaptation strategies are the lack of local capacity and the low financial resource base to cover the capital and running costs of most of the strategies. With the likelihood of increased future rainfall variability, it is important that planners and decision-makers take into account the effects of climate change and variability on water resources. In so doing, they need to adopt sustainable water supply and demand solutions for the longer term

Understanding the adaptive capacity of Australian small-to-medium enterprises to climate change and variability

Abstract Small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) comprise 96 per cent of all private businesses in Australia. The SME sector is the economy’s largest employer and the largest contributor to GDP. Moreover, SMEs play a significant role within socio-economic systems: they provide employment, goods and services and tax revenue for communities. Climate change may result in adverse business outcomes including business interruptions, increased investment and insurance costs, and declines in financial indicators such as measures of value, return and growth. After natural disasters, SMEs face greater short-term losses than larger enterprises, and may have lower adaptive capacity for various reasons. This study examines the underlying factors and processes shaping adaptive capacity of Australian SMEs’ to climate change and associated sea level rise. Specifically, the research asks the following questions: 1) How have SMEs considered and integrated adaptation into business planning? 2) What are the key underlying processes that constrain and influence the adaptive capacities of SMEs? and 3) What types of support are required to promote SME business continuity under a changing climate? The study adopts theories from Political Ecology and draws on literature on vulnerability and hazards to understand the processes that mediate the adaptive capacity of SMEs. The empirical research involved an online survey targeting SMEs, attending business engagement events hosted by chambers of commerce, 30 semi-structured interviews with secondary stakeholders, five case studies involving SMEs and secondary stakeholders, and finally a stakeholder workshop which brought together participants from both groups. The central conclusion of this study is that underlying contextual processes are critical to enhancing the adaptive capacity of SMEs. These processes include: the social relationships between SMEs and support organisations; the relationships within support organisations themselves; the agency of SMEs to direct resources toward building resilience into business continuity; SMEs’ perceptions of climate risks; and power struggles between support organisations. Unfavourable combinations of these processes have the potential to limit the adaptive choices that SMEs can adopt in order to overcome climate change and other related stresses on business continuity. These processes generate vulnerability and often occur at scales external to the SMEs;including relationships between different tiers of government as well as between various support organisations working with SMEs. These contextual processes have been largely overlooked in formal programmes that aim to build business resilience. The programmes have tended to be reactive and have tended to focus on business recovery during and after disasters rather than on altering the vulnerability context of SMEs through anticipatory prevention and preparedness or adaptation planning. This study suggests that the success of efforts to build the adaptive capacity of SMEs to future climate and related stresses will depend on how they address these underlying processes to facilitate the ability of SMEs to exercise their agency in pursuing adaptive choices that they value

The impact of climate change on small municipal water resource management: The case of Bredasdorp, South Africa

In response to the recent reports on climate change impacts, especially on the water supply sector, a methodology that incorporates climate change impacts in to water resource planning at small municipal level is proposed. The introduction of the term Climate Impact Factor helps to quantify the extent to which future drying will have on local water resources. The illustrative example reveals that a 30% reduction of available water by 2035 will be caused by a projected 8% reduction in precipitation. The reduction in available water resources due to climate change leads to in an increase of future supply cost of 3.5 times that under historical climate conditions. It is illustrated however, that this can to some extend be mitigated through demand side management strategies

Sustainability of electricity supply and climate change in South Africa

Global responses to climate change are gradually considering the potential synergies between sustainable development and climate change policies. In the coming years developing countries face great challenges in development and its impact on climate. The path of development chosen by the region, upon which lies the future growth of energy and emission trajectories, would be greatly influenced by technological developments, economic cooperation between countries, and global cooperation in mitigation and adaptation of climate change. In many developing countries policies that are sensible from a climate change perspective can emerge as side-benefits of sound development programmes. In the energy sector, for example, price reforms, sector restructuring, and the introduction of energy efficiency measures and renewable energy technologies - all undertaken without any direct reference to climate change - can mitigate climate and other environmental risks while achieving their main goal of enhancing economic and social development. Moreover national development policies in these countries pay considerable attention to extending developmental benefits to the poor people. These include eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, ensuring primary education for all, women empowerment, enhancing life expectancy, energy access to all, and environmental sustainability. Most of these align with the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and also enhance the adaptive capacities of the populations towards adverse impacts of climate change

Electricity supply options, sustainable development and climate change priorities: case studies for South Africa

This report summarizes the results of the Projecting future energy demand: Balancing development, energy and climate priorities in large developing economies project that has been managed by the UNEP Risø Centre on behalf of UNEP DTIE. The project, sponsored by UNEP, is a partnership between the UNEP Risø Centre and centers of excellence in South Africa, China, India and Brazil. The focus of this report is on the energy sector policies that mainstream climate interests within development choices. The country study results for future energy and environment projections that are included in this report are backed by intensive economy-energy-environment modeling by the Energy Research Centre at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, wherein general scenario analysis of the energy sector explores some policies in more depth. The report argues that starting from development objectives is critical to mitigation efforts in developing countries. Instead of defining local benefits as ancillary to mitigation, reductions of GHG emissions should be seen as the co-benefits of policies that drive local sustainable development. A development-focused approach seems more likely to be implemented than the imposition of GHG targets by the international community—especially as South Africa has adopted development targets such as the Millennium Development Goals and promoted the Johannesburg Plan of Action

The deformation properties of concrete with classified Lethabo fly ash

Bibliography: pages 71-74.It has become necessary to determine the magnitude of creep, shrinkage, elastic and thermal deformations of concrete as these characteristics determine the loss of prestressing in prestressed concrete and affect the deflections with time of large concrete sections. Much of the literature available on this topic has conflicting conclusions. In this research, the effect of fly ash was first investigated with regard to general concrete properties such as bleeding, early set, workability, mortar excess and compressive strength. Classified Lethabo fly ash and local Western Cape materials were used for this work. With the increase in the percentage fly ash present in the concrete mix, the water requirement was reduced in order to get the same workability. This characteristic reduced the amount of water available for bleeding. For a given C/W ratio the inclusion of fly ash in a concrete mix had no effect on the mortar excess. The early setting time was retarded for mixes with increasing percentages of fly ash. Higher cementitious material to water ratios were required for concrete with classified Lethabo fly ash than Ordinary Portland Cement mixes, to obtain the same 28 day compressive strength. The fly ash mixes had higher strength developments with time i.e. they have lower early strengths and higher long term strengths than OPC mixes for the same 28 day compressive strengths. Having developed a wide range of concrete mixes, the main investigation was done on specific deformation properties of concrete such as the elasticity, shrinkage, creep and thermal movement. The effect of different wet curing durations and testing ages on these properties were investigated. The elastic modulus was determined by both static and dynamic test methods. A relationship was established between the two methods to estimate the static modulus from the dynamic modulus, which was quicker to perform. In this thesis, the elastic modulus was not affected by the presence of fly ash. The elastic properties of the fly ash mixes was found to be similar to that of the OPC mixes of the same compressive strength. Similarly, the drying shrinkage and thermal movement were not affected noticeably by the presence of fly ash. The volume of aggregate was not a variable as it did not change when fly ash was added to the mix. An attempt was made to develop a test to determine the plastic shrinkage of an unrestrained sample. The effect of fly ash on the plastic shrinkage was not investigated fully. For the creep of concrete, it was established that mixes containing fly ash have lower creep factors than OPC concretes, although no clear trends were apparent for increasing percentages of fly ash. The effect of fly ash in pump mixes was also investigated and the same trends were apparent, although in general, the pump mixes had higher creep factors than the normal mixes. The curing of concrete is critical if good quality concrete is to be obtained. For all deformation properties, the longer a specimen was wet cured, the lower were the deformations. With longer wet curing, a larger volume of hydrated gel developed which gave higher compressive strengths and more rigidity within the matrix. The conclusion reached in this thesis was that the presence of classified Lethabo fly ash did not noticeably affect the deformation properties of the concrete for equivalent compressive strengths. Where some effects were noticed, the fly ash concretes displayed somewhat lower deformations

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Abstract This paper investigates the approaches of the various discourses operating in the water sector and how they address the issues of scarcity and equitable access under projected climate change impacts. Little synergy exists between the different approaches dealing with these issues. Whilst being a sustainable development and water resources management issue, a holistic view of access, scarcity and the projected impacts of climate change is not prevalent in these discourses. The climate change discourse too does not adequately bridge the gap between these issues. The projected impacts of climate change are likely to exacerbate the problems of scarcity and equitable access unless appropriate adaptation strategies are adopted and resilience is built. The successful delivery of accessible water services under projected climate change impacts therefore lies with an extension of the adaptive water management approach to include equitable access as a key driver