Browsing by Subject "Thresholds"

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    [Apart] space valuing community: focused on incidental learning and wayfinding thresholds
    (2025) Sithole, Lunga; Ewing, Kathryn
    The study aims to reimagine and intervene in the space of Khayelitsha. The intentions are to integrate and alter current smart parks designs by the City of Cape Town. To offer social empowerment to the surrounding context, residents by tempting to provide a detailed design which could offer a space of economic generative platforms/facilities within the landscapes. I've tasked the study also with the aim to uplift all age groups and a target of providing a safety spine moving to and from space, providing a network of movement spaces. The incorporation of pillars aimed at learning by attempting to go into detail with the design of outdoor educational learning spaces intended at structuring the youth mind-set to the current workspace paradigm linked to the forth-industrial revolution. The learning pillars to be triggered in space are Visual, verbal, social, physical, aural and Solitary. The space aims to provide a link for the youth to young professionals in the spaces where they will be facilitated for in the container spaces. To start-up new businesses, allowing for an innovation hub which could generate an ideal cosmos for networking and offer a pulse to activate the green corridor. There will also be the exposure to 24/7 video tutorials in the space allowing for a link to stimulate the mind to future career paths in the global market. The issue of crime in the space is also one I wish to engage with by providing a street language by reading into the literature of street DNA (Simpson,2018) coupled with human desirability links along walkways to best attract the highest amount of foot traffic in space to allow for the safety in numbers approach. The ideas of adding WI-FI hotspots along space and assessing the current desire lines of space for the best accommodation of the masses. The title 'Apart-space', disassembled links the “apart” to the Apartheid ideology denoting on the spatial formation of the township of Khayelitsha, hinting at how it was formed as an influx zone with no much spatial planning for recreational use taken into account. The dash composing the ideology of transformation in post-apartheid South Africa. The “space” denoting to the green corridor (lost space) that had been left as buffer zones by the planners of the time in the spaces
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    Open Access
    Estimating minimum thresholds of natural vegetation for the integrated management and protection of water quality in South African catchments
    (2025) Locke, Kent; Winter, Kevin
    Despite multi-level commitments to Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM), many of South Africa's water quality problems are attributable to the negative impacts of anthropogenic land use on water quality. Academics and policymakers have warned that unless action is taken to improve water resources management through the implementation of coordinated, proactive, and data-driven strategies, the country faces a water crisis that will have severe socio-ecological consequences. As natural vegetation acts as a sink, thus protecting water resources from diffuse pollution, the preservation of an adequate amount within catchment areas is important. However, among several pertinent questions, it is not clear (1) how much natural vegetation cover is required, (2) at which scale(s) this would be most effective, (3) how natural vegetation should be classified, and (4) whether the fragmentation of natural vegetation is a significant factor. To answer these questions, regression analysis was used to model relationships between water quality (measured using a composite pollution index) and metrics of natural vegetation (estimated from national land cover maps) at multiple scales across a sample of sub-catchments located within South Africa's Berg-Olifants, Breede-Gouritz, and Mzimvubu-Tsitsikamma Water Management Areas. Across this sample, a statistically significant, nonlinear, and inverse relationship was found between proportions of natural vegetation cover and pollution levels. This relationship was strongest (1) when natural vegetation was defined as an aggregation of indigenous woody vegetation, wetlands, and forestry plantations, and (2) when measured across the whole catchment and within a 200 m riparian buffer zone. At both scales, however, fragmentation was not found to be significant. The models further indicated that approximately 82 to 90% natural vegetation cover was necessary at these scales to keep pollution scores within acceptable levels. Additional nonlinear thresholds estimated using breakpoint analysis also suggested that if proportions of natural vegetation fall below 45% (across the whole catchment) and 60% (within a 200 m riparian buffer zone) a dramatic increase in pollution levels can be expected. The study has direct relevance for IWRM in so far as these results demonstrate (1) the critical importance of preserving areas of natural vegetation for water quality management and (2) the possibility of providing actors with quantifiable and context-specific management targets which can inform multistakeholder decision-making processes at appropriate spatial scales.