Research Publications (Academic Support)
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://ir-dev.dut.ac.za/handle/10321/211
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Item Integrating quality and cost of surface raw water : upper and middle Vaal water management areas South Africa(IWA Publishing, 2010) Dzwairo, Bloodless; Otieno, Fredrick Alfred O.The user-pays principle encourages use of a water tariff structure that incorporates pollution and/or depletion of a water resource because that water represents a capital resource base. Development of a tool that models variability of surface raw water quality in order to predict cost of treatment thus makes economic sense. This paper forms the backbone for an on-going doctoral study in South Africa's Upper and Middle Vaal Water Management Areas (U&MVWMAs) of the Vaal River (VR). Specific objectives of the overall research are; to carry out pollutant tracer hydrochemistry of specific reaches of the U&MVWMAs including producing an integrated ecological functionality for the whole study area, and to develop a tool that models the variability of surface raw water quality using surface raw water tariffs and water quality data for years 2003–2008. This paper concluded that downstream water boards (WBs) paid a higher water resources management charge (WRMC) for more polluted raw water than upstream WBs. It was recommended that a quality-cost model be incorporated at tier1 of the cost chain for water services to ensure fairness of service delivery and spread of burden to consumers.Item Making a case for systems thinking approach to integrated water resources management (IWRM)(Academic Journals, 2010-04-22) Dzwairo, Bloodless; Otieno, Fredrick Alfred O.; Ochieng, George M.While definite benefits could be gained from integrating the management of natural and human systems, taking into account the effects of human activities on the environment, the task of operationalising and implementing this approach in practice represents an enormous challenge. Some limitations highlighted include the definition of integrated water resources management (IWRM) itself, where it appears to be broad, all-encompassing and impressive but contains ‘‘lofty phrases’’ that have little practical importance for either present or future water management practices. This paper makes recommendations to uptake and incorporate the systems thinking approach (STA) in IWRM decision making processes, an approach envisaged to be more participatory and also process-oriented. Incorporation of socio-economic dynamics is also recommended, with a suggestion that the biophysical relationships like interactions in a basin between water, the human population and settlements should be analysed to the extent possible.Item Towards a more sustainable surface raw water tariff structure in the Vaal basin : a situational analysis(Academic Journals, 2011-04-18) Dzwairo, Bloodless; Otieno, Fredrick Alfred O.; Ochieng, George M.With an increasingly urbanised population, further study was necessary to determine if water could be used more efficiently by applying efficient tariff structures in combination with decision support tools in the form of models. This paper highlighted challenges towards establishing a sustainable surface raw water tariff structure. Limitations of using the pollute-pays principle for setting a surface raw water tariff structure within a highly urbanised environment were noted. A tariff structure in the Upper and Middle Vaal Water management Areas which are part of the Vaal basin in South Africa was shown to promote inequity such that a downstream user paid more for using more polluted water. Recommendations specific to the Vaal basin included adopting a user-pays principle and also use of a model that incorporated variability in surface raw water quality for tariff setting and also for purposes of predicting potable water treatment costs.Item Ecological functionality of the Upper and Middle Vaal Water Management areas(2012-12-05) Dzwairo, Bloodless; Otieno, Fredrick Alfred O.; Ochieng, George M.A harmonised in-stream water quality guideline was constructed for the Upper and Middle Vaal Water Management Areas (WMAs) using ideal catchment background values for the sub-catchments; Vaal dam, Vaal barrage, Klip River and Blesbokspruit/Suikerbosrant Rivers. Data for years 2003 to 2009 was interpolated to a daily time-step for 2526 days at 21 monitoring sites covering both WMAs. Conductivity was used as a surrogate to capture the variability in water quality. This provided an ecological functionality model of the study area, coded for ranges 10-18, 19-45, 46-80, 80< and 81-100 mS/m. The Upper and Middle Vaal basin is currently extremely vulnerable to changes in water quality, uncertainty about changes which it can tolerate, and the fact that there are very limited options for mitigating effects of poor water quality in the basin, overall. Thus a precautionary approach is being proposed in this paper, in order to protect the ecological functionality of the aquatic ecosystem. The proposed harmonised guideline presents a crucial model to pre-determine the ecological functionality for any water point in the study area, in order to provide upstream-downstream pollution trading and other decision support processes towards sustainable basin managementItem The impact of pricing of raw water on cost of treatment and ultimately on the cost of potable water(2012-11-19) Otieno, Fredrick Alfred O.; Dzwairo, BloodlessThe Department of Water Affairs and Forestry (DWAF) sells raw water to water boards, generally at a fixed price determined annually. The cost of this water does generally not take into account the quality that the water boards receive. Water boards are then expected to treat this water to a certain specified standard for distribution to local authorities which then supply consumers. Consumers are charged based on the volume they consume, presumably a charge that would recover the cost of treatment and other associated overheads, which are agreed upon in advance. The result of this could be one of two things, namely that the consumers in different parts of the country pay different rates or that the water boards may be operating at a loss. Based on recent and ongoing research in the Vaal River system, this paper looks at the implications of this on the final cost of treatment and ultimately on the cost to consumers and suggests ways in which raw water could be priced to ensure fairness and spread of burden to the consumers based on quality requirements.