Water-Sensitive Design for Climate Resilience: Grounded Lessons from Cape Town

Abstract

Water Sensitive Design (WSD) has been around in some form at least since the early 1960s. A leading contribution to the field was Australia’s proposal for a transition framework for Water Sensitive Cities. This transition framework has been criticized as not taking full account of the unique challenges experienced in cities in the Global South. These challenges include poverty, governance problems, and resource constraints. These issues converge in Cape Town where they are amplified by entrenched redundant inequality arising from historic separate development during the apartheid era. South Africa’s new post-liberal constitution is founded on principles of social justice, basic human rights, and sustainable development. In the context of enduring water stress, episodic but prolonged droughts and climate change, there are efforts in academia, government, and practice to place South Africa urban areas on the trajectory to becoming water-sensitive cities. This contribution highlights the challenges, proposals, and practices in the highly unequal and contested City of Cape Town (CCT).</p