An assessment of the capacity of waterfront developments to adapt to climate change : a case study of the Point Waterfront Area, Durban.

Thesis (M.T.R.P.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2013.This research set out to investigate the resilience of the Point Waterfront Development in Durban, South Africa, with regards to climate change. Considering that South Africa is a Third World country, the assumption was that Point Waterfront area would fall short of resilience when it comes to climate change. This research made use of primary and secondary data from the Point Waterfront case study. Primary data were obtained through semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders of the Waterfront development. These are The eThekwini Municipality Planning and Economic Development units, Laurusco Developments, Durban Point Development Company and the local Ward Committee and Councilor. Secondary data were obtained through recent publications in the form of municipal reports, newspapers, internet articles, and books had the relevant data on the resilience of Waterfront developments to climate change. Findings suggest that the Point Waterfront is relatively safe unless something of very extreme nature comes along in terms of sea level rise from the Indian Ocean. All the stakeholders are aware of what climate change might do to the development but the municipality is, the findings suggest, the only stakeholder that goes an extra mile as to improve the resilience of the Point Waterfront and of the city of Durban at large. There seems to be some irregularities when it comes to funds as the municipality does not have enough to tackle adaptation on its own. As a recommendation, waterfront developments should be approved only aftermeasures that enable them to be resilient to climate change have been put in place.Developers must ensure efforts to mainstream the issue of climate change adaptation. Policies should be put in place to formalize adaptation among residents. An example would be instituting a policy requiring every property to have a green roof

Using a hybrid methodology of dasyametric mapping and data interpolation techniques to undertake population data (dis)aggregation in South Africa

The ability of GIS to produce accurate analysis results is dependent on the accuracy and the resolution of the data. In many instances the resolution of census enumerator tract data is too coarse and therefore inefficient in conducting fine grained spatial analysis. Dasymetric techniques can increase the spatial resolution of data by incorporating related high resolution ancillary data layers allowing the primary data to be represented at finer resolutions. Areal interpolation relates to a geostatistical process of transferring data from one set of polygons to another. This paper proposes the application of a hybrid technique using dasymetric mapping and areal interpolation principals to overcome the issues of transferring data from arbitrary spatial units to fit for purpose analysis zones on demand. As a consequence the technique also overcomes the problems of coarse scale population data as well as issues relating to the modifiable areal unit problem (MAUP). The data used to illustrate the value and accuracy of the developed methodology is that of the 2011 census population data and ESKOM’s SPOT building count. The final outcome is an algorithm allowing the disaggregation and aggregation of population data to any spatial unit with a high level of accuracy.Keywords: Dasymetric Mapping; MAUP; Population; Census; GI