by André and Jesper
Jesper characterized the challenges that Maputo faces using the framework of Dynamic Adaptive Pathways (DAPPS), which was developed by Marjolijn Haasnoot, a colleague at the Faculty of TPM here in Delft. You can read all about Jesper’s work in this entry.
Background
Similar to other rapidly growing cities in developing countries, Maputo faces multiple challenges related to water and sanitation. Additionally, new trends are visible with the potential to increase the severity of these challenges in future decades; these include:
- Climate change, which is expected to cause longer droughts and more severe floods;
- Population growth; and
- Economic growth.
These trends will, very likely, impact drinking water consumption patterns and the demand for sanitation services. Thus, to guide his work, Jesper defined the following research question:
How can the Dynamic Adaptive Policy Pathways (DAPPs) approach be applied to characterize the challenges towards sustainable freshwater supply and sanitation services for Greater Maputo, and be exploited to quantitatively compare the potential paths to address these challenges?
The ten steps for the development of Dynamic Adaptive Policy Pathways, following Haasnoot’s work.
The DAPPs approach allows testing and comparing many alternative solution pathways within solution strategies. Different external development scenarios can be applied to tweak strategies to the need of expected developments, which allows policymakers to determine a general development strategy that can be adapted year-by-year to best suit external developments in case they have actually happened in reality.
Methodology
In order to answer this research question, increased understanding of the challenges, the system actors and their interrelations in the water and sanitation sector in Greater Maputo is needed. As background research for the DAPPs approach, the methodology of Policy Analysis in Multi-Actor Systems was conducted providing the necessary understanding of the water and sanitation system and actors, as can be seen in the following picture.
Systems Diagram (including external factors, means from the Means-End Diagram and criteria from the Objectives-tree) of the integrated systems of water and sanitation in Greater Maputo. Click on the image to enlarge it.
The model, developed by Jesper, includes assumptions about the relations between groundwater quality, extraction for use, surface water, and drinking water supply, as well as the influences of external factors like climate change, population and economic growth. Additionally, requirements about the system are included in the DAPPs model, such as a maximum acceptable extraction of groundwater to prevent loss of quality and a consequential maximum volume of groundwater abstracted.
Jesper also worked on a cost-benefit analysis to the different options proposed for the water and sanitation sector in Maputo. Solutions for water and sanitation services were assessed and scored for their cost and benefits in multiple impact criteria relevant in the system (drinking water supply, surface water, sanitation and groundwater quality). These scores and the DAPPs model allow to quantitatively compare different strategies in their effectiveness to deal with the challenges for a sustainable freshwater supply and sanitation services.
Overview of the impacts of the actions (from chapter 6), the ‘sell by year’ and cost of each action. The full table can be found in Jesper’s thesis.
The many options were then compared using the DAPPs framework – which looks just like a metro-line map. This representations allows the combination of different options in order to respect pre-defined thresholds (e.g. groundwater abstraction).
DAPPs for scenario 1: Rapid climate change, population growth and economic growth.
Analysis and results
The results show that the most traditional approach – increasing supply through dams – does not meet the requirements towards the extraction of groundwater, nor does it lead to an acceptable future situation in sanitation. With rapid developments of the external influences, additional actions are required to meet this the requirements of a more sustainable future. In fact, the only strategy tested that will probably lead to sustainable sanitation services and sustainable drinking water, is a combination of additional supply resources (e.g. dams), the improvement of the supply networks (e.g. reduction of water losses), and wastewater treatment, followed by water reclamation.
References
dos Santos Silva, T. (2014). The discursive production of the urban waterscape – An insight into Maputo City , Mozambique. UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education.
To read the whole story please check Jesper’s thesis under publications.
