Exploring the political geoecology of African Drainage Basins
- Authors: Rowntree, Kate
- Date: 2008-04
- Language: English
- Type: Text
- Identifier: vital:580 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1018873 , Transcript of Inaugural lecture August 2007
- Description: [From the text] Many people in Africa rely directly on their natural ecosystems for their livelihoods. A key driver of these ecosystems is water, which in Africa has a high spatial and temporal variability. Water comes from rainfall, but the availability of that water depends on the way that it is processed through the landscape unit known as a drainage basin. Drainage basins are the "home" of rivers; rivers which sustain ecosystems and their dependents (human society). Humans and ecosystems cannot live apart from one another, but the relationship can be exploitative and degrading, or harmonious and protective. Throughout history human activity has been subject to direct controls and indirect pressures subjected by the larger society, through political, economic and cultural forces that are often intertwined. Rivers are especially sensitive to the geography of this relationship. Being longitudinal ecosystems that transfer water and other materials from the source of the river to the oceans, activities in upstream areas have a direct impact on downstream areas. To explore these socio-ecological relationships within the context of an African drainage basin I have developed the concept of political geoecology that is explored in this address.
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- Date Issued: 2008-04
Local Institutions for Water Governance: A Story of the Development of a Water User Association and Catchment Forum in the Kat River Valley, Eastern Cape
- Authors: Burt, Jane C , McMaster, Alistair , Rowntree, Kate , Berold, Robert
- Date: 2008
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/433040 , vital:72927 , xlink:href="https://wrcwebsite.azurewebsites.net/wp-content/uploads/mdocs/TT 295 -web-Water policy and General.pdf"
- Description: This report describes the development of water resource management organisations (institutions) in the Kat River Valley from 1997 to 2006. The two organisations described here – the Kat River Valley Water User Association and the Kat River Catchment Forum – are given separate narratives for the sake of clarity, although they developed in close association. Both these organisations were nurtured and supported as a result of a research process by members of the Catchment Research Group (CRG) from the Department of Geography at Rhodes University. Funding came largely through the Water Research Commission (WRC).
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- Date Issued: 2008
Participation in Integrated Resource Management (IWRM) in South Africa Quick Reference Guide
- Authors: Motteux, Nicole , Rowntree, Kate , Fargher, John , Berold, Robert , Stanford, Mindy
- Date: 2006
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , report
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/437585 , vital:73395 , ISBN 1-77005-065-5 , https://wrcwebsite.azurewebsites.net/wp-content/uploads/mdocs/TT%20258-06%20for%20printers.pdf
- Description: South Africa’s National Water Act of 1998 makes the management of any water resource a partnership between local water users, regional catchment managers, and the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry. The Act encourages communities to become actively involved in developing and managing their water resources. The three volumes of guidelines summarised here are aimed at social practitioners who work with stakeholder communities. The guidelines help practitioners make partici-patory water resource management a reality. They introduce the necessary social tools and scientific knowledge to enable communities to participate as envisioned by the legislative framework.
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- Date Issued: 2006