South Africa Archive - Page 6 of 6

Drone Technology to Improve Municipal Finance and Resource Planning in uMhlathuze, South Africa

Written by Support on 17. November 2021. Posted in Countries, South Africa.

What are the reasons if cities experience a big discrepancy between their calculated water demand and actual water consumption? Non-revenue water through leakages? Illegal water connections? A mistake in the calculations?

In 2019, the City of uMhlathuze experienced exactly this problem. A gap analysis commissioned by NatuReS confirmed the urgent need for the municipality to act on the improvement of water supply to traditionally managed areas, while decrease the unbilled consumption. To meet this objective, two pilot studies were undertaken, using drone technology to measure population increase, calculate average per capita water consumption, understand the extent of water losses and improve planning. All this aimed at increasing water supply.

Increase water supply by gathering data from drone images

The village of Gobandluvo and Vulindlela were chosen as pilot areas to determine the population and subsequent water demand, using Remote Pilot Aircraft System (RPAS) technology, also known as drone technology.

Aerial photos of Gobandluvo were compiled from autonomous drone flight information, indicating the most recent developments. The aerial photos were geo-referenced over the existing zonal areas, as well as over the two project focus areas. From these photos, the represented structures were counted and divided into the following categories: households, rental rooms, student housing and schools. This information was then used to calculate the theoretical water demand and compared to the actual water demand in the area.

Findings guide targeted interventions

The findings of the investigation highlighted that the population had increased dramatically from the most recent census in 2011, which consequently influenced the water demand calculations. The area of Gobandlovu, marked as “High Water Loss Area”, requiring a high priority for water conservation intervention, was found to be close to expected water consumption per capita standards. However, the population of Gobandlovu was three times higher than the 2011 census. The municipality had assumed that the area had a high per-capita consumption, which it didn’t. Simply, the size of the population in the area had tripled and with it the water demand. An additional problem was the number of illegal and unbilled connections, which have a negative fiscal impact on the municipality.

With the obtained information gained from drone technology, the municipality can now decide on targeted actions to e.g. reduce illegal connections or upgrade the infrastructure to meet communities’ demand.

Aerial photos taken by drones can generate important information about illegal structures along rivers, invasive plant species etc.
Copyright: GIZ/Jesper Anhede

The way forward

As the pilot intervention represented a big success, NatuReS donated a drone to the municipality and is supporting three municipal officials in obtaining their drone licenses. This will help the municipality to carry out similar exercises in other areas, and additionally use the drone for more interventions like:

Leak detection – using infrared camera
Point leak detection – for high level reservoirs
River flow investigation – discover illegal structures
Surveillance over invasive plant species
Population count
Construction management progress reports
Spillage identification
Quantity survey

This will tremendously improve the service delivery and development planning for communities, as well as water demand management, budgetary planning and water loss reduction in the City of uMhalthuze.

The 7th South African Annual Water Stewardship Conference: Water Stewardship in Action – A journey to economic recovery

Written by Support on 13. October 2021. Posted in South Africa, Uncategorized.

On 23^rd and 24^th of November, the 7th Annual Water Stewardship Conference will bring together virtually representatives from government, industry, civil society and development partners to explore how investments in South Africa’s water sector can be leveraged to generate sustained economic growth, employment, and wellbeing.

Jointly hosted by the Strategic Water Partners Network (SWPN), GIZ’s Natural Resources Stewardship Programme (NatuReS), the Royal Danish Embassy and the National Business Initiative (NBI) with the support of the Department for Water and Sanitation (DWS), the event builds on the momentum of last year’s consultations which focused on ‘Strengthening the Water Value Chain through Partnerships’.

This year’s topic of “Water Stewardship in Action: A journey to economic recovery” will unpack what needs to be done to create robust governance for sustainable economic recovery and which water investments are needed to support a post-COVID green recovery.

The conference will be organised around two inter-related sessions where representatives from government, private sector and civil society will discuss these critical topics, offering not only different perspectives but also working towards joint solutions to address these pertinent challenges.

You can sign up for the event here.

The Value of Water in the Nelson Mandela Bay Area

Written by j.kertscher on 23. September 2021. Posted in Countries, South Africa.

Drought and scarcity of water can have devastating impacts on the social and economic development of a region, as can be seen in South Africa’s Eastern Cape Province, which is suffering from an ongoing drought and water crisis. In order to shed light on the impacts and evaluate different mitigation scenarios, the Natural Resources Stewardship Programme (NatuReS) as part of the Nelson Mandela Bay Water & Economic Resilience Partnership commissioned the Toulouse School of Economics (TSE) to analyse the impact of water scarcity and effects of different mitigation scenarios on economic growth and human wellbeing for the Nelson Mandela Bay (NMB) area and South Africa as a whole. The macroeconomic study found, by using a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) Model, that improving water saving and reducing non-revenue water will have the most positive effects in terms of GDP and employment, while other measures such as water pricing and reuse and desalination will have little or no positive effects. Not addressing water scarcity will have the most negative effects with a decrease of GDP and loss of jobs.

Aerial view of the Nelson Mandela Bay area. Copyright: Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber

Apart from knowing about the impacts of scarcity, it is also very important to identify the most suitable areas for catchment restoration and management activities. Therefore, NatuReS within the framework of the Nelson Mandela Bay Water & Economic Resilience Partnership and the Algoa Bay Water Fund commissioned the economic consultancy StratEcon to do a comparative analysis of the three Eastern Cape catchments Kouga, Kromme and Baviaanskloof regarding their macroeconomic and water profiles. This way, the most attractive one to potential funders for restoration and catchment management activities should be identified. By firstly conducting a baseline study of the physical and economic environments of the catchments and subsequently calculating a multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA), the Kouga catchment was identified as the most suitable for potential funders.

These findings shall help to inform policymakers and funders to focus their endeavours on the right measures to address the water security challenges in NMB. NatuReS aims to support solutions that improve water security, ensure livelihood strategies and safeguard economic investment through a natural resource stewardship approach, while protecting upstream landscape integrity. For this, the two comprehensive studies were concisely summarised and published as informative brochures to promote stewardship in the Nelson Mandela Bay area and beyond. Please find the brochure “The economic impacts of water insecurity” here and “Economic Baseline and Comparative Analysis” here.

Bottled water and sanitisers ready to be handed out in communities, healthcare facilities and schools

Community awareness and education campaigns in the Nelson Mandela Bay City region

Written by Support on 9. February 2021. Posted in Seudafrika Editor, South Africa.

The impact of COVID-19 in South Africa has been particularly dire. One region that has been significantly affected by the pandemic is the Nelson Mandela Bay City region in the Eastern Cape.

The impact on economic development, health, and community life across the city has been unprecedented, and has worsened hardships faced by already vulnerable communities. This led to an urgent call for collaborative responses by private, public and community stakeholders.

A community education workshop educating participants about the virus and its dangers. Due to lockdown regulations, restrictions on gatherings are in place; participant numbers have to be kept to a minimum with social distancing observed at all times.
Copyright: Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber

To support the efforts, NatuReS South Africa partnered with the Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber (NMBBC) under the umbrella of the “Nelson Mandela Bay Stewardship Partnership Initiative”. They launched various awareness campaigns that promote behavioural change at a community level. This includes implementing education programmes for schools and communities, and community-based healthcare facilities on good Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) principles, especially hand washing and social distancing behaviour.

Personal protective equipment (PPE) and water was distributed to vulnerable communities.

For vulnerable communities and schools:

– 1158 Surgical Masks
– 814 5-litre bottles of sanitiser
– 4883 5-litre bottles of water

For healthcare facilities:

– 42 boxes of gloves
– 1483 gowns

Additionally, community engagement workshops as well as media-, radio- and poster campaigns in local languages took place. An extensive school PPE and COVID-19 awareness campaign is currently being developed to ensure safe reopening of schools. Further measures include educating community healthcare workers on safe waste disposal of used COVID-19 testing kits at local clinics. Through the Chamber’s leading role, these actions directly feed into the Nelson Mandela Bay City Command Council’s emergency response to COVID-19.