Abstracts Business

Opportunities for integrating Sustainable urban Drainage Systems (SuDS) in informal settlements as part of stormwater management

by Ihuhwa Catherine Malulu

ENGLISH SUMMARY: The lack of stormwater drainage systems in South Africa’s informal settlements has negative implications for human life and livelihoods due to flooding, resultant relocation, and the increased potential for water-borne diseases. Informal settlements, expected to exponentially increase in numbers and size due to urbanisation trends and lack of housing for low- and no-income groups, are often located in areas not suited to human habitation, such as wetlands. In addition, they are often located in topographical areas that are difficult to service, such as steep slopes, and configured in a way that makes it difficult to impose conventional systems. Besides the physical challenges to implementing systems in these contexts, South African municipalities face cost and capacity challenges regarding basic service provision. South Africa’s guiding document to implementing and upgrading these settlements, the Upgrading Informal Settlements Programme, focuses almost entirely on issues of water, sanitation, energy and housing provision. Drainage is also marginalised in the general policy discourse focused on improving the living conditions of those in informal settlements. The need to find and implement alternative drainage solutions is paramount. This study seeks to motivate for such an alternative approach and to explore the options available. The study, using a mixed-methods approach, examines the potential for incorporating sustainable urban drainage systems into the Upgrading Informal Settlements Programme, the benefits offered by these systems, their alignment with sustainable development principles and the challenges to implement them in the informal settlement context. It does this using a sustainability framework and a complexity theory lens. The interactions between urban water cycles, drainage solutions and behavioural aspects combine to create a ‘wicked’ problem – one that is complex and cannot be reduced to simple parameters. An understanding of systems and complexity thinking was therefore needed to ascertain the contribution that a sustainable urban drainage system could make in the informal settlement context. The informal settlement of Enkanini, Stellenbosch is used as an illustrative example of the need for such systems and the Century City drainage system is given as a real-world example. A predominantly qualitative approach was used as there is a dearth of literature on the subject and no current application of sustainable urban drainage systems in the informal context available to examine in literature. A literature review provided a theoretical framework for the study and three main policy documents were analysed using the Nvivo 10 software package to gather both quantitative and qualitative data by coding and categorising the content, which was then substantiated by content analysis, a review of associated grey literature and personal interviews. The study outlines the consequences of a lack of drainage systems in the informal context, the need for alternatives to the current conventional… Advisors/Committee Members: Swilling, Mark, Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences. School of Public Leadership..