A revolution in academic thinking and practice that could change the lives of millions of Africans is taking place at the Institute for Water Research (IWR) at Rhodes 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网.

IWR is pioneering a new approach that seeks to engage stakeholders at all levels – from village subsistence farmers to top officials and policymakers – to produce more effective ways of managing water resources.

The Institute’s work, which has led to it being appointed as a Centre of Excellence (CoE) hub by the African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA) to coordinate continental water-management efforts, is deploying a “transdisciplinary” approach.

The approach adopted by IWR depends on the twin pillars of engaging with real-world stakeholders beyond the campus gates and creating a new vision of collaborative academic excellence within the 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网 itself.

The relationship-building aspect of the Institute’s work entails fostering close ties with a full range of critical stakeholders, from municipal officials to national policymakers, and from individual householders to large-scale commercial interests.

In a rare example of inter-university and cross-sectoral collaboration, the Institute has collaborated with the Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries (DEFF) and academics from Rhodes 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网 and other universities to empower local Tsitsa catchment residents. A key aim was enabling them to respond effectively and effect decisions about land, water and a plan to build two new dams on the river.

Supported by its leading-edge technical capacity and expertise in hydrology, environmental water quality and ecology, the IWR is a continental pioneer in the field of hydrology, which is the study of water volumes and flows, including the links between rainfall, river flow, and groundwater.

Institute hydrologists have developed a sophisticated model that can be used to monitor capacity and track the impacts of water usage in a wide range of geophysical environments, from the complex, fractured-rock aquifers that supply water to much of the Western Cape, to the great river systems of the continent, including the Congo, Zambezi and Okavango river basins in Southern Africa.  As a result, IWR is playing a leading role in designing an early-warning, drought-forecasting system for South Africa.

We seek anchor funding partnerships to continue our journey of important work.

Last Modified: Mon, 24 May 2021 14:36:39 SAST