WaRisCo Stakeholder Workshop Series: From Science to Practice

Expecting the Unexpected in Drought and Flood Risk Management

The WaRisCo project aims to develop probabilistic projections of drought and flood disasters in South Africa’s Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal Provinces in a changing climate, using innovate km-scale climate and hydrological modelling. Together with its implementation partners, WaRisCo strives for the research to find uptake in Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) plans and long-term adaptation strategies. A co-design and co-production process is thus central to WaRisCo, towards the project producing output that is planning and policy relevant. Stakeholders have the final decision, of how they choose to act on the research findings and implement the project’s recommendations.

WaRisCo’s key stakeholders include implementation and planning agencies working at the national to local level, such as the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS), the National Disaster Management Centre, Rand Water, uMngeni-uThukela Water, the Cities of Johannesburg and eThekwini, SASOL and others. The stakeholder workshops are designed to initially establish relationships and refine the scope of the research. It is expected that over the lifetime of the project, co-produced research outputs of WaRisCo will increasingly find impact in the decision-making and policies of the stakeholders.

First Stakeholder Workshops in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal Province in 2024

In 2024, around the WASA-kick-off and the first WaRisCo project-team meeting, we had a first round of engagements with our stakeholders in the week 16-20 September, to meet key-roll players and have a first in-person engagement in terms of the objectives of WaRisCo. A workshop with the DWS team led by the DDG Deborah Mochotlhi (Deputy Director General, Water Resources Management, South Africa) was held in Pretoria. The project leaders, Prof. Francois Engelbrecht and Dr. Sophie Biskop presented the project followed by a keynote address by DDG Mochotlhi, who underscored the importance and relevance of the project given the current water related climate change challenges in the country. The DWS pledged to actively support the initiative (e.g. avail requisite data and information) while the research team made the commitment of regular feedback and progress reporting during the life span of the project.  Among other, it was agreed that based on the research results from climate and hydrological modelling and land-use scenario development, the disaster risk reduction tools and adaptation strategies will be co-designed and co-developed collaboratively with DWS and other stakeholders. The research team held similar positive workshops with the National Disaster Management Centre, the City of Johannesburg and SASOL.

The KZN workshop was held in Durban where once again both project leaders introduced the project to the attendees (DWS; Department of Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs; Department of Agriculture and Rural Development; uMngeni-uThukela Water; eThekwini Municipality; University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN); World Bank; Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs) and explained how the co-design and co-development of DRR and adaptation strategies are anticipated to be generated collaboratively with stakeholders. Mr. Michael Singh (Director for Water Resources Support, KZN DWS) chaired and facilitated the workshop. The meeting session was quite successful as Mr. Singh proposed the establishment of the KZN project working group supported by everyone at the workshop.

WaRisCo Working Groups

According to the suggestion of Mr. Singh, the formalisation of a working group committing the research team to keep group members informed of progress and to periodically invite them to project meetings and co-development workshops that will subsequently be held was proposed for both KZN and Gauteng.  The DWS workshop attendees in Pretoria and other relevant officials who were later invited to be members of the Gauteng working group accepted and welcomed the invitation. Hence WaRisCo has now established a forum that will be a platform for co-design and co-development of DRR and adaptation strategies.

Rand Water as a New Key Stakeholder in the WaRisCo Project

Rand Water is the largest water utility in Africa, providing bulk potable water to more than 11 million people in Gauteng, parts of Mpumalanga, the Free State and North West. Their customers include metropolitan municipalities, local municipalities, mines and large industries in Gauteng and surrounding areas. On the 10 December 2024 an online meeting was held between Rand Water and the research team, where the project was introduced. Rand Water subsequently pledged their support and indicated that they are happy to participate in the co-design and co-development of the DRR and the adaptation strategies during the project life span. The technical team of Rand Water is also willing to share their expertise with the research team regarding the development and implementation of operating rules of the Integrated Vaal River System.

Next Stakeholder Workshops

In 2025-2027 we will have a series of formal workshops with the stakeholders, gradually progressing in these from the analysis of the problems at hand, to the assessment of risks and the formulation of adaptation solutions and improved disaster risk reduction plans. A series of technical workshops is scheduled for the week 24-28 March, as the research team is within the process of building up and developing the integrated hydrological modelling system, and will consult with various experts within the stakeholder organisations about this. WaRisCo modellers will meet the DWS technical team that is responsible for development, review and update of the dam operating rules at national level. A meeting between the research team and the Rand Water technical team has also been set-up at Rand Water offices, to discuss dam operating rules in the Integrated Vaal River System. The research team will also meet with uMngeni-uThukela Water, KZN DWS and eThekwini City to discuss technical aspects of the project especially the implementation of the operating rules for dams in the Umgeni and other KZN rivers. For the second half of the year the WaRisCo team plans multi-stakeholder events in both the Gauteng and KZN Provinces, possibly in the form of national workshops (details are still to be decided in consultation with stakeholders). WaRisCo is also looking forward to host a summer school on climate and hydrological modelling in South Africa in November this year, as a contribution to the larger WASA capacity building efforts.

More information on all seven projects can be found here and in the programme publication.