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The Geography of Climate Change Adaptation in Urban Africa pp 355–387Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Governing River Rehabilitation for Climate Adaptation and Water Security in Durban, South Africa

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Abstract

Water security and climate adaptation governance have converged in Durban, due to the city’s focus on using ecological infrastructure to secure water for the future, address risks, promote resilience and adapt to climate change. In the absence of well-established and institutionalised rules for climate change at the national scale in South Africa, state and non-state actors in Durban are increasingly drawn into the horizontal governance of climate change. The city has focused on climate adaptation approaches that are experimental, promote learning-by-doing and are aligned with developmental, capacity building and poverty alleviation agendas. This chapter compares the governance approaches of two river rehabilitation projects within Durban, to reflect on the convergence of water security and climate adaptation agendas. Through their implementation both projects have prioritised state–citizen relationship building, empowered communities and promoted capacity building processes.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    ECF is a branch of Conservation KwaZulu-Natal that formed in 2014. This civil society organisation represents all registered Conservancies within eThekwini.

  2. 2.

    The Eco-Champs are six young adults from Clermont, who have been employed during the three phases of the ARPP.

  3. 3.

    Water Research Commission Project 2354.

  4. 4.

    CLIMWAYS is a multi-disciplinary research project that analyses institutional constraints on water resource management and urban climate change adaptation in Durban and Cape Town.

  5. 5.

    In June 2018 the Minister of Environmental Affairs, Dr. Edna Molewa, published the National Climate Change Bill for public comment.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by funding received from the Water Research Commission of South Africa (WRC 2354) and the Rockfeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities programme. The authors would like to thank Dr. Elsa Lee from Cambridge University for reviewing an earlier version of this chapter, as well as Bahle Mazeka from University of KwaZulu-Natal for the production of the maps. The authors would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on an earlier version of the chapter.

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  1. School of Built Environment and Development Studies, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa

    Patrick Martel & Catherine Sutherland

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  1. Patrick Martel
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Planning, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana

    Patrick Brandful Cobbinah

  2. Institute for Land, Water and Society, Charles Sturt University, Albury, NSW, Australia

    Patrick Brandful Cobbinah

  3. Research Institute of Environmental Law, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China

    Michael Addaney

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Martel, P., Sutherland, C. (2019). Governing River Rehabilitation for Climate Adaptation and Water Security in Durban, South Africa. In: Cobbinah, P.B., Addaney, M. (eds) The Geography of Climate Change Adaptation in Urban Africa. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04873-0_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04873-0_13

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