Pululu Mahasa
University of the Free State, South Africa
Title: Water demand management in the upper orange river basin, South Africa
Biography
Biography: Pululu Mahasa
Abstract
Sustainable environmental use and management are now regarded as a cornerstone of economic and social development and the protection and wise use of ecosystems and biomes should become the parameters of social and economic development. The ultimate causes of pressures on ecological and human receptors are often hard to attribute. Apart from water demand, freshwater ecological systems are driven by water quality, by hydrology, morphology and other physical factors. It is further mentioned that these complex interactions can confound efforts to understand the causes of ecological decline in a given catchment, to predict the likely effectiveness of a set of policies, or the likely timeframes within which they may be effective. There is a growing body of evidence on the cost-effectiveness of measures to tackle water scarcity. Although hydrology and the science of managing water resources have played key roles in human and economic development throughout history; yet these roles have often been marginalised or obscured. Knowledge of hydrology and water resources engineering and management transformed the landscape, and thus also the very hydrology operating within catchments itself. It is only fairly recent that water experts have become conscious of such mechanisms, exemplified by several concepts that try to incorporate them - integrated water resources management, socio-hydrology, eco-hydrology. Recent developments in the last 20 years have reached a stage at which a more systemic understanding of scale interdependencies can inform the sustainable governance of water systems, using new concepts like virtual water transfers, water footprints, precipitation sheds, and water value flow. A major evidence gap, therefore, faces policy-makers at the catchment scale to design well targeted and effective interventions. In combination with water demand, this may include a combination of source apportionment techniques, iterative modelling studies and tracer experiments. The purpose of the study is to develop a suitable model based on the water demand management practices in the study area given that water resources in the mountain areas are increasingly under pressure, with serious implications for both mountain and lowland areas. It is in this light that this study will be carried out.