IWRA Proceedings

Abstract

South Africa is acclaimed for its water reform and the adoption of integrated water resources management (IWRM) as the framework for managing catchment water resources to achieve equity and sustainability. The proposed process is inherently adaptive, allowing for reflection and learning in complex, uncertain environments such as catchments. A decade on, attention has now turned to implementation. In this paper we present some key findings from a three-year study in eight catchments in the water-stressed north-east of the country which examined factors that both constrain or enable implementation. Findings suggests that a number of factors are critical for the evolution of tenable and appropriate IWRM including a practice-based understanding of policy, the role of leadership and communication, governance, collective action and regulation, and self-organisation and feedbacks. We focus on the last two and examine their origins, drivers, development and role in building resilience in two case studies: the Letaba and Crocodile Catchments. In each case self-organisation and feedback loops exist but are highly variable in terms of their contribution to IWRM. The underlying factors contributing to their functionality are discussed. In some cases, despite good efforts to self-organise and functional feedbacks, they are either vulnerable or of limited impact being confined to a local scale which constrains learning and transformation at a wider scale. In other instances, encouraging cases are emerging in which leadership, governance and the ability to self-organise are 2 central. We conclude that self-organisation and responsive multi-scale feedback loops are essential for management in complex systems, providing the basis for learning and response to an evolving context.

Keywords: water reform, integrated water resources management, complexity; self-organisation; multi-scale feedback, resilience, learning; responsiveness; adaptability, adaptive management; transboundary governance; Southern Africa