Mitigation Reports
Here are the premises of six mitigation reports conducted in groups of 2-3 to investigate the issue from different socio-technical perspectives.
Forecasting Water Security
Applying forecasting techniques to water resource management in Cape Town addresses two major challenges. Firstly, using a machine learning algorithm was hypothesised to predict Day Zero by connecting past seasonal trends and real-time data on rainfall, dam-levels, and the water consumption of households, companies, and agriculture addressed the lack of ample water resource management. Due to a lack of on-site data, the algorithm was tested on different seasonal data sets with the postulation that the technology can be implemented in other regions. This approach can be the engine of a data-driven smart water network, since it allows government stakeholders to tailor policy strategies.
Secondly, an analysis of social factors influencing trust and risk perception was conducted to investigate people’s perceptiveness to information on water use, addressing the locals' water use exceeding restrictions in Cape Town. Recommendations were made to ensure effective communication of Day Zero predictions including data analysis can be used to enforce stricter controls over water usage in Western Cape, provided there is ample on-site data. These predictions can also be used to target restrictions more specifically towards problematic areas.
The mitigation report can be found here:
Governance Assessment
Health governance procedures are required for efficient management of the current crisis. An in-depth stakeholder analysis showed large disruptions of stakeholder relationships. However, a closer examination of governance context showed that the urgency of the crisis has significantly increased positive characteristics of governance, which resulted in desalination plants being effectively implemented in the past year. By assessing the levels of governance, the involved actors and their goals, problems, resources and responsibilities, and policy instruments, the extent to which these structures were supportive of the implementation of desalination plants was assessed. The crisis led to positive developments of extent, flexibility, coherence, and intensity of stakeholder relationships in South African water governance procedures. Nevertheless, past assessments have recommended to adopt these aspects into governance procedures beyond the water crisis in order to enable long-term water security.
The mitigation report can be found here:
Urban Water Use Reduction
This mitigation effort aims to raise awareness about, and lower household water consumption, through the presentation of personal water use statistics. This technology heavily relies on the use of social and behavioral science to influence the user in his or her water use. The outcome of this research was a list of design criteria for creating an integrated water metering system. This outlined the requirements for the system as a whole, the information provided, user-to-user connectivity, the user interface, the physical device, and the implementation strategy. The proposed tap-based, Internet of Things, water metering system, was designed for Cape Town’s socio-economic middle class in order to achieve widespread implementation.
The mitigation report can be found here:
Desalination Technology
To be able to propose alternative long-term sources of fresh water, the desalination mitigation aims to find the best suited desalination technology for the Western Cape. When comparing different desalination technologies, Seawater Reverse Osmosis (SWRO) systems proved to have significantly lower capital costs, environmental impacts, and energy consumption than competing systems. To further reduce the costs of SWRO desalination, the implementation of large scale plants is required to increase operation and maintenance cost-effectiveness. With regards to a long-term solution, adaptations in the water distribution system and the energy sector need to be made. To make these changes, it is advised to power SWRO plants in the Western Cape with wind power which has been proven to work the best with these kind of desalination plants.
The mitigation report can be found here:
Environmental Water Treatment
Sewage exerted from Cape Town’s marine outfall goes directly into the ocean, passing only through—as a preliminary wastewater treatment—metal bars that filter out large objects [15]. Due to this, high levels of diverse organic pollutants can be found in marine organisms and their surrounding seawater, signifying that the quality of intake water for desalination “poses a potential risk to human health” [16]. Furthermore, “it is probable that the water recovered from desalination may still be contaminated with traces of complex pollutants after the reverse osmosis process” [16]. To mitigate this problem, the installation of a Membrane-Based Reactor equipped with biofilters directly before the marine outfalls is proposed. This will ensure that the produced water from the desalinated plants will not cause harm for human and agricultural use.
The mitigation report can be found here:
Precision Agriculture
Water consumption in the agricultural sector of the Cape Water region currently stands at 29% of overall consumption [17] and the economy depends heavily on agricultural production, including water-intensive crops such as cereals and vineyards[18][19]. This sector has suffered a direct, and immediate impact due to the prevailing droughts; leading to an even more urgent need for measures towards food and water security [4].
It was aimed to make a case for stimulating the use of spatio-temporal, data-based precision agriculture in rural areas to increase profitability, optimize yield and quality, reduce costs, and reduce pressure on the environment [20][21][22]. This technology has the potential to offer security to farmers, even in more unstable weather conditions, and the growing population of Cape Town and its surroundings.