Background
The IWR was recently awarded funding for a three-year research project that connects governance and hydrology. Leading the project will be Mr David Gwapedza, a final year PhD candidate who is expected to join the IWR as a postdoctoral fellow for the tenure of the project. The project team includes Dr. Jane Tanner (IWR lead hydrologist) and Dr. Sukhmani Mantel (IWR senior researcher), as well as Dr. Bruce Paxton (Freshwater Research Centre, South Africa), and Dr. Olivier Barreteau (National Research Institute of Science and Technology for Environment and Agriculture, France) as project collaborators.
Project details
Agent Based Modelling (ABM) is an approach that has been used to facilitate the negotiation and development of equitable water use plans in catchments marred by water use conflicts. As increased farming developments occur, water resources are strained and as a result the downstream water users suffer the most. An apprehensive scenario can therefore occur where farmer(s) act independently, making water use decisions that serve their own interests further entrenching inequality and conflict in catchments. The selected catchment for this project is the Koue Bokkeveld (KBV) which is located in the Western Cape Province, and its established and emerging farmers conflict over water usage.
The role of the project is therefore to use ABM to model the catchment system, representing the hydrology, ecology and the human elements. In the model, each farmer/groups of famers with similar interests will be represented as “agents”. These agents will be modelled to act i.e. make water use decisions, autonomously as they sometimes do in reality. Therefore, when the model is run (played on a visual interface), all agents will simultaneously act autonomously on the same hydrological and ecological space i.e. the catchment. There will be a series of workshops where the model will be run together with farmers, and each farmer will then be able to see the impact of their representative agent(s)’ water demand/use on other agents and on the environment. Farmers will then participate in an exercise of ensuring that every agent in the model is generally satisfied by the water they access and that both their neighbour and the environment get a reasonable supply of water. This exercise will ultimately involve negotiations and decision-making leading to the adjustment of water demand/use to ensure that equity is achieved in the ABM model. The results of the ABM based negotiation and decision-making will form a framework for developing a water use plan.
The manager of the KBV catchment, Mr. Stefan Theron will join the project not only as an important stakeholder but also an MSc student focusing on the ABM implementation. Mr. Sakhi Mahlobo will come in as an MSc student, focusing on hydrological modelling. Additionally, we hope to simultaneously test a novel Decision Support System (DSS) model along the established ABM approach, which Mr. Sinethemba Xoxo will implement and test as part of his PhD research.
Conceptual representation of a catchment in an ABM. (source: Mice-Olifants presentation, Badboud M., & Gwapedza D., 2019)