Browsing by Subject "Geographical Science"

Now showing 1 - 9 of 9
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    A Solidarity (Food) Purchase Group in Cape Town
    (2021) Stewart, Liesl; Battersby, Jane; Hunter, Jo
    For the past thirty years, food producers and consumers have initiated alternative food networks (AFNs) because of the perception that the globalising agrifood system is unsustainable, untrustworthy, and untransparent. These alternative strategies for food production and distribution are perceived to be rooted in sustainable, socially-embedded principles. In more recent years, solidarity purchase groups (SPGs) have formed as a distinct type of AFN collaboration that facilitates higher levels of relationships of regard and reciprocity between consumers and producers. The literature of AFNs has largely focussed on AFNs in the global North. There has been far less research focussed on the nature of AFNs in the global South. This research project was undertaken to write a history of an SPG in the global South, in Cape Town, South Africa: The Good Food Club (GFC). The development of the GFC was examined within the context of the global literature on AFNs. Key actors in the GFC, suppliers and members, were interviewed to describe their participation and to discuss the motivations driving their involvement in the GFC. The research explored their values around food production and distribution, and the ways their values have developed or changed over the time of their GFC involvement. Through increased exposure to the food system realities, members have grown in their consciousness as consumers. Members and suppliers expressed desire for connection with each other, for increased embodied knowledge. Members do not believe they will find this this knowledge and connection in the country's corporate retailers. Finally, this research comments the GFC developing similarly to AFNs of the global North, and its consequent limitations as a strategy for the common good of Cape Town.
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    Enabling a community of practice: participatory practices in building a water-sensitive catchment
    (2025) Bennett, Andrew; Winter, Kevin
    This study explores the conditions for an enabling environment that lends itself to a more inclusive, relational, value-framing approach to nature and biodiversity in the field of urban water management. There are increasing calls in water governance for a better understanding of how participatory processes can be designed and structured to accommodate a range of stakeholders and achieve sustained public value. Although local governments are making progress in establishing formal community participation strategies, the overall engagement undertaken often informs citizens rather than involving them, thus limiting the input from different actors. Literature suggests that by fostering landscapes of communities of practice (CoPs), governments can enable more effective cooperation, interrelationships, and datadriven feedback loops between public authorities and communities that leads to effective policy- and decision-making. In CoPs theory, the notion of a ‘community' does not refer to the traditional sense of a friendly, harmonious, and bounded group but rather expresses the strength of voluntary, informal, authentic relationships between participants where a sense of belonging is an accomplishment. The rise of CoPs also reflects new societal dynamics in which citizens are more willing and able to be involved in or initiate the processes of policy formulation, implementation, and service delivery. Drawing on the work of the Friends of Liesbeek (FOL) - a community-based organisation (CBO) stewarding the Liesbeek River in Cape Town for over 30 years - the overall aim of this research was to understand how a CoP is initiated, developed, and sustained. The research design was a deductive thematic analysis, using social learning and CoPs theory to interpret the engagements and activities of FOL. The study attempts to show how the natural relational process of social learning spaces (CoPs) can improve the effectiveness of participation across different scales and sectors (from local to global) in the water domain. Although not without its limitations, a CoPs approach offers the potential to address complex water challenges by overcoming situations where state and nonstate actors continue to work independently from each other and do not sufficiently share, adopt, and implement solutions that work in practice and can be replicated at scale. Examples of CBOs, such as FOL, illustrate that ordinary citizens can and do play a critical role in managing water resources at local level and shaping water governance and policy.
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    Governing coastal risk: the case of Langebaan's disappearing shoreline
    (2020) Samuels, Mogammad Yaaseen; Sowman, Merle
    The coastal zone is the dynamic interface between land and sea and is under immense threat from increasing coastal population and development trends as well as global climate change. Given global and regional sea level rise projections, coastal African countries including South African are highly exposed to climate risks, namely storm surges, flooding and coastal erosion, which particularly impact socio-ecological systems at the local level. The aim of this study is to examine the various technical responses and governance approaches employed by government to address coastal risk along the Langebaan shoreline – a coastal town located in the Western Cape, renowned for its tourism, recreation and scenic attributes. However, the Langebaan shoreline is increasingly at-risk from climate-related sea level rise, compounded by inappropriate coastal development. This research suggests measures to strengthen coastal risk governance (CRG) through exploring stakeholder interpretation of coastal risk as well as understanding the barriers to addressing coastal risk in the context of the Saldanha Bay Municipality (SBM). This study was informed by a review of the legal framework governing coastal risk in South Africa as well as the various technical reports pertaining to addressing coastal erosion in Langebaan. Primary data collection was undertaken through semi-structured interviews. The findings suggest that coastal erosion along the Langebaan shoreline is a complex and multi-faceted human-environmental issue. Furthermore, various reactive steps have been taken in response to Langebaan's eroding shoreline since the 1997 storm, these included hard and soft engineering measures as well as managed retreat. However, the Saldanha Bay Municipality (SBM) remain crippled by lack of institutional capacity and resources to tackle environmental issues like coastal erosion. Therefore, strengthening coastal risk governance (CRG) in under-resourced municipalities like the Saldanha Bay Municipality (SBM) requires improved communication and coordination across all levels of government and with civil society, which in turn will promote long-term strategic thinking and innovative and collective action.
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    Is sustainable intensification possible in smallholder crop production systems in semi-arid West Africa? The case of the Red Volta and Black Volta basins in Northern Ghana
    (2023) Ansah, Prince; New, Mark; Norton, Marieke
    Food systems experts consider Sustainable Intensification (SI) a key concept to tackle the increasing global and regional food demand, particularly in semi-arid West Africa, which is prone to socioeconomic and biophysical challenges. In Ghana, crop production varies across semi-arid systems, particularly between the Red Volta and Black Volta basins. Given this context, the study assessed and compared the factors contributing to crop productivity differences between and within the RVB and the BVB and explored how these factors contribute to achieving SI goals of productivity, resilience, efficiency, and equity. This study applies an integrated SI framework and case study approach in these basins, using mixed methods: 200 household surveys, six in-depth interviews, three focus group discussions, five key informant interviews, and two workshops, with both random and purposive sampling. The results identified several important determinants of crop productivity that are relevant to SI. These included water/soil-related risks and strategies, access to agricultural resources, demographic characteristics, institutional collaboration, and household production needs. These determinants, which differ in importance within each basin, impact the achievement of SI goals. Farmers' perceptions of water/soil-related risks have a direct bearing on crop productivity across basins. Access to consistent resources was found to enhance yields, though an over-reliance on sporadic government support posed challenges especially in RVB. Demographic factors, notably age, gender, and education, emerged as significant determinants of farming practices and outcomes. Furthermore, the research emphasized the importance of robust inter-institutional collaboration in bolstering agricultural innovation and productivity. Notably, the choice of crops cultivated was influenced by a delicate balance between household consumption needs and market demands. The study underscores the need for local institutions to mitigate weak policies, limited resources, and poor knowledge transfer that could inhibit SI strategies implementation. The thesis concludes by recommending that national and local agriculture stakeholder should promote the SI concept as a guiding principle for improving existing farming systems through strengthening agriculture policies and facilitating innovations within smallholder crop production systems to enhance sustainable productivity in semi-arid Northern Ghana.
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    Mainstreaming Water Energy Food Nexus thinking and drought preparedness into local municipal planning: An analysis in the Bergrivier Municipality
    (2022) Thwala, Setsabile; Methner, Nadine
    The study explores the impacts of drought at a local scale focusing on the drought impacts on a local municipality and major employers through a Water Energy Food Nexus lens. The study is grounded on literature based on water-energy-food nexus, the sustainable livelihoods framework and drought. Given that natural disasters such as drought tend to affect water, energy and food, it is important to understand how municipal policy is set to try to manage these drought impacts and the interconnections that exist between these resources water, energy and food, as well as how these three resources affect local livelihoods. This study assumes that when trying to understand drought impacts on local access and use of water, energy and food as well as the influence on livelihoods, it is essential to also incorporate the municipality that not only acts as a service provider for household water and energy but also plays a role in disaster risk management in times of drought. Therefore, the interventions municipality may take during the drought may also have an influence on employers within the municipality and household use and access to water, energy and food. Employers play a role towards people's livelihood security as they contribute to households earning a living (income generating activities) and interventions taken by employers during the drought may have an influence on household livelihoods. Employers are also competing resource users of water and energy within a municipality, which is why it's important to include in them when looking at impacts of drought on water, energy food at the local scale. The study conducted interviews with Bergrivier Municipal Officials and employers to gain an understanding of their experiences and actions taken during the 2015-2018 drought. The study also made use of a desktop review to assess municipal policy with regards to drought preparedness and the extent to WEF Nexus thinking within the municipality. In conclusion the study found that the municipal still required extensive work towards acknowledging WEF Nexus thinking or the interdependencies that exist amongst these three resources holistically. Even so the WEF Nexus is still a growing concept that requires more time to be adapted by municipalities nationally and globally into their development planning.
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    #ReclaimTheCity: the use of Facebook to engage the state and the public on affordable housing delivery in Cape Town, South Africa
    (2024) Mshelia, Saratu; Ngwenya, Nobukhosi
    The global increase in the use of social media has enabled the real-time connection of people across localities, the fast sharing of information and the mobilisation of communities for a common cause. Social movements are increasingly leveraging this phenomenon to expand their activism to the digital space to reach a wider audience. This is true in the South African context as well where Reclaim the City (RTC) and Ndifuna Ukwazi (NU) – the two cases for this research – utilise a social media platform, namely, Facebook, to engage with the State and the public on affordable housing delivery in Cape Town. To understand how Facebook is utilised by these organisations, a qualitative research approach was adopted. First, a systematic review of posts published between 2017 and 2020 on the Facebook pages of RTC and NU was undertaken, excluding the contents of comments to the posts. Second, five semi-structured interviews – three with participants from RTC and two from NU – were also conducted. Lastly, non-participant observation was also undertaken at three events organised by the organisations to understand the link between their online and offline engagements. The findings indicate that RTC and NU have played significant roles in highlighting the need and urgency for affordable housing delivery in Cape Town's well-located areas. This has been achieved through in-person and online campaigns and activities. Focusing specifically on the digital realm, the findings indicate that Facebook serves as a complementary space of engagement for both RTC and NU. In this space, RTC shares personal stories on housing struggles and promotes its offline campaign events to raise public awareness and support. They also share information that provides insight into the State's obligations, promises and failures regarding affordable housing issues. NU, on the other hand, leverages its social media platforms to mostly educate the public on affordable housing delivery through the dissemination of housing research findings, providing information about tenancy rights and available support against eviction, as well as providing updates on state policies, projects and ongoing housing-related court cases. The findings illustrate that Facebook is an essential space for public sensitisation and mobilisation. However, as the findings further indicate, online campaigns are designed to support offline campaigns and in-person activities by mobilising the public. Yet, as the findings further indicate, the stated audience of RTC's Facebook page – the poor and working class – faces significant challenges in the form of high data costs which limit their engagement with the Facebook posts of RTC and NU. Thus, the findings intimate that social media serves as a complementary space of participation and primarily facilitates engagement with the upper working class and middle class.
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    Simulating the Characteristics and Influences of the Botswana High over Southern Africa using the Model for Prediction Across Scales (MPAS)
    (2022) Maoyi, Molulaqhooa Linda; Abiodun, Babatunde J
    The Botswana High is a prominent mid-tropospheric system that modulates rainfall over subtropical Southern Africa, but the capability of a Global Climate Model (GCM) to reproduce the characteristics and influences of this system on drought remains unknown. Furthermore, the summer variability of the Botswana High has been linked to the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). However, it remains unknown whether the high's variability is a direct response to ENSO. To that end, this thesis examines the capability of a GCM with quasiuniform resolution (Model Prediction Across Scales, hereafter MPAS) in simulating the characteristics and influences of the Botswana High on drought modes over the subcontinent as well as the influence of ENSO on the high. To simulate the characteristics of the Botswana High and its influence on drought modes, the MPAS model is applied to simulate the global climate at 240km quasi-uniform resolution over the globe for the study period 1980-2010. The model results are validated against gridded observation dataset (Climate Research Unit, CRU), satellite dataset (Global Precipitation Climatology Project, GPCP), and reanalysis datasets (Climate Forecast System Reanalysis, CFSR; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA; and ERA-Interim reanalysis 5, ERA5). To investigate the response of the Botswana High to ENSO, this thesis carried out two MPAS model experiments. The first model experiment used observed SSTs everywhere during the study period, while the second experiment used observed SSTs everywhere except over the Pacific Ocean, where monthly climatological SSTs are imposed. The results of this thesis show that MPAS replicates all the essential features in the climatology of climate variables (e.g. temperature, rainfall, 500 hPa geopotential height and vertical motion) over Southern Africa, reproduces the spatial and temporal variation of the Botswana High, and captures the influence of the Botswana High on droughts and deep convections over the subcontinent. In all the datasets (CRU, ERA5, 20C and MPAS), the most dominant five Drought Modes (hereafter DM1-DM5) over Southern Africa jointly explain more than 60% of the interannual variability in the 3-month summer droughts for SPEI and for SPI. ERA5 and MPAS agree that the Botswana High influences the interannual variability of DM1; however, the influence is strong in ERA5 (r = -0.85) and moderate in MPAS (r = -0.42). In addition to that, wet years (+ve SPEI and SPI) are characterized by a weak Botswana High and drought years (-ve SPEI and SPI) by a strong Botswana High. In addition to that, the wet and dry years correspond to the -ve and +ve phases of El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), respectively. Given this, the results of this thesis suggest that the Botswana High might be a conduit pipe through which ENSO signals influence DM1 over the region. Investigation into the impact of ENSO on the Botswana High reveals that the absence of ENSO forcing reduces the amplitude of the Botswana High variability, but the signal of the variability remains. While ENSO enhances the strength of the Botswana High, it does not aid the formation of the High. The result of the thesis has application in the improvement and application of MPAS for drought early warning systems over Southern Africa.
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    Sites of migrant landing: (un)braiding topographies of relations across hair salons in Mowbray
    (2024) Mosienyane, Keamogetse; Selmeczi, Anna; Kimari Wangui
    This dissertation explores hair salons in Mowbray as a node for landing amongst African migrant women who have settled in Cape Town, are arriving or in transition. To land is to set foot and to find grounding, and it is also to contend with borders. Therefore, to conceptualise the hair salon as a landing space is a deliberate geographical choice that situates landing in the central city. The significance of this is to emphasise that migrants do not land only once at national borders such as airports, shores, land ports, etc., that landing is not a singular event, and continues as African migrants try to find grounding in their new urban contexts. The dissertation's centring of the hair salon is a Black reading of space that facilitates porous mobilities through social relations and networks informed and maintained by African migrant women. Going beyond characterisations as informal trading spaces, a porous infrastructural analysis can be deployed to engage with the African hair salon as a spatial node that forefronts African women's place making in the city. The methodology for this research includes ethnographic semi-structured interviews, some of which were held during hair appointments with hairstylists, observations, archival material of Mowbray and other periodical texts. Additionally as part of the methodology, an experimentation with braiding as a cartography in Black feminist geographies provides a map of mobility in the urban space, that is routed and rooted in African women's beauty practices. Two distinct relations to the hair salon have emerged in the findings. One that emphasised place making through social relations, and the other that showed the different ways that displacement and anti-migration attitudes and policies affect the survival and maintenance of hair salons. For the former, hairstylists shared that the way they entered the hair salon market was through family and friends or a friend of a friend recommendations; the salon provides various mobility for workers who after saving up can also begin their own practices; through braiding, practices of beauty are embraced with themselves and their customers. For the latter, urban development projects such as the demolition of a long-standing shopping centre; rental increase; high inflation and unchanging prices; lack of immigration documentation were discussed in length. The hair salon stands at the intersection of community and resource building for demographics that face displacement and structural marginalisation in the city. Keywords: Black hair salon, landing, urban migration, mobility, African migrant women, arrival infrastructure, people as infrastructure, braiding as cartography, urban displacement
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    The use of biofiltration cells to filter contaminated water flowing from a slum settlement in South Africa
    (2018) Ghanashyam, Aniket; Winter, Kevin
    Polluted urban surface runoff degrades the receiving water bodies and impacts on downstream water quality and ecological systems. In response, there is growing research attention that is focused on how to treat surface water runoff before it is discharged into these water bodies which includes using a variety of land-based treatment systems. This thesis investigates the performance of large scale, low-cost nature-based filtration systems to clean contaminated water without the addition of chemicals. A relatively small portion of water that is generated and discharged from a slum settlement in South Africa, where water-based services are limited and often dysfunctional, is intercepted and diverted through six biofiltration cells. These cells were packed with different types of natural media, three of which were planted with a variety of reeds while the other cells were kept as control cells. Water that flows into each biofiltration cell is controlled via a network of valves. Flow meters were used to determine the volume and rate of discharge to each cell. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of HLR (hydraulic loading rate) and HRT (hydraulic retention time) on water quality that was discharged from each cell. This study determined whether the resulting effluent could be repurposed for irrigating edible crops. The final discharge was tested to confirm the differences between the influent and effluent in each cell. Overall the vegetated cell that was packed with large stones (19 - 25 mm aggregates) (LSV) performed the best and displayed reductions of 98.51% of ammonia and 100% of orthophosphate concentrations. E. coli bacteria were also reduced by nearly 100%. Phytoremediation played a role in reducing contamination by removing 97.07%, 89.70% and 100% for ammonia, orthophosphate and E. coli respectively over the study period of four months. Throughout the study, Large Stone Vegetated cells (LSV) reduced nitrite levels by 77.21% with higher removal rates for ammonia, orthophosphate, nitrites, respectively, compared to Large Stone cells (LS). An HRT of approximately seven days resulted in the most improved water quality for LSV, LS, Small Stone (SS) and Small Stone Vegetated cells (SSV) for most of the parameters that were tested. However, orthophosphate leaching occurred in the SSV cell. Peach Pip Vegetated cells (PPV) and Peach Pip cells (PP) did not perform as well as the other cells.