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Deriving a policy document towards an early warning system for estuaries in South Africa: case study Great Brak estuary, Eden District, Southern Cape

South Africa's estuaries and their surrounding communities are becoming increasingly vulnerable to storm surges and accompanied estuary flooding. These events are largely due to increasing severity of storm surges combined with growing housing and commercial developments. A particularly severe weath...

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Main Author: Stander, Johan
Other Authors: Ansorge, Isabel
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: Department of Oceanography 2020
Subjects:
oceanography
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access_status_str Open Access
author Stander, Johan
author2 Ansorge, Isabel
author_browse Ansorge, Isabel
Stander, Johan
author_facet Ansorge, Isabel
Stander, Johan
author_sort Stander, Johan
collection Thesis
description South Africa's estuaries and their surrounding communities are becoming increasingly vulnerable to storm surges and accompanied estuary flooding. These events are largely due to increasing severity of storm surges combined with growing housing and commercial developments. A particularly severe weather event in 2007/2008 highlighted the pressing need to understand the processes involved and the urgency to develop proactive response and management actions to mitigate the effects of future storm events on these coastal areas. Scientific research on estuarine flooding is limited not only for South Africa but within the international community as well and only recently has received committed attention from policy makers. It is clear that our current knowledge of South African estuary flooding events remains rudimentary; while necessary action to mitigate such events are poorly understood and planned. The aim of this PhD thesis is to devise and implement an Estuary Early Warning – Emergency Preparedness and Response Guide for stakeholders and government policymakers. This guide will target South Africa's coastal region by analysing past information on storm surges and estuary flooding, particularly in the low-lying southern coast region of the Western Cape, South Africa. The key objective of this thesis is to assess the best processesfor the issuing of estuary alerts and to better standardise them so that the response remains in line with multi-hazard early warning standard procedures and practices within South Africa. A further aim is to provide a comprehensive national guideline on how best to effectively disseminate and communicate such information and to establish an Estuary Early Warning (EEW) – Emergency Preparedness and Response Guide (EPRG), which forms part of the South African Multi-Hazard Early Warning System (MHEWS). It is critical that this EEW meets general principles accepted internationally for an effective Early Warning System. This thesis addresses the following key elements namely: (1) Risk identification, (2) Key drivers and contributions to estuary flooding, (3) Monitoring and alert early warning system, (4) Alert dissemination and (5) Response actions. Such pioneering work is an essential tool to translate science into policy, a crossover field, which remains poorly implemented.
format Thesis
id oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/32381
institution University of Cape Town (South Africa)
language eng
last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:48:25.371Z
license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
publishDate 2020
publishDateRange 2020
publishDateSort 2020
publisher Department of Oceanography
publisherStr Department of Oceanography
record_format dspace
source_str UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/32381 Deriving a policy document towards an early warning system for estuaries in South Africa: case study Great Brak estuary, Eden District, Southern Cape Stander, Johan Ansorge, Isabel Hermes, Juliet oceanography South Africa's estuaries and their surrounding communities are becoming increasingly vulnerable to storm surges and accompanied estuary flooding. These events are largely due to increasing severity of storm surges combined with growing housing and commercial developments. A particularly severe weather event in 2007/2008 highlighted the pressing need to understand the processes involved and the urgency to develop proactive response and management actions to mitigate the effects of future storm events on these coastal areas. Scientific research on estuarine flooding is limited not only for South Africa but within the international community as well and only recently has received committed attention from policy makers. It is clear that our current knowledge of South African estuary flooding events remains rudimentary; while necessary action to mitigate such events are poorly understood and planned. The aim of this PhD thesis is to devise and implement an Estuary Early Warning – Emergency Preparedness and Response Guide for stakeholders and government policymakers. This guide will target South Africa's coastal region by analysing past information on storm surges and estuary flooding, particularly in the low-lying southern coast region of the Western Cape, South Africa. The key objective of this thesis is to assess the best processesfor the issuing of estuary alerts and to better standardise them so that the response remains in line with multi-hazard early warning standard procedures and practices within South Africa. A further aim is to provide a comprehensive national guideline on how best to effectively disseminate and communicate such information and to establish an Estuary Early Warning (EEW) – Emergency Preparedness and Response Guide (EPRG), which forms part of the South African Multi-Hazard Early Warning System (MHEWS). It is critical that this EEW meets general principles accepted internationally for an effective Early Warning System. This thesis addresses the following key elements namely: (1) Risk identification, (2) Key drivers and contributions to estuary flooding, (3) Monitoring and alert early warning system, (4) Alert dissemination and (5) Response actions. Such pioneering work is an essential tool to translate science into policy, a crossover field, which remains poorly implemented. 2020-11-11T11:39:46Z 2020-11-11T11:39:46Z 2020 2020-11-11T11:38:32Z Doctoral Thesis Doctoral PhD http://hdl.handle.net/11427/32381 eng application/pdf Department of Oceanography Faculty of Science
spellingShingle oceanography
Stander, Johan
Deriving a policy document towards an early warning system for estuaries in South Africa: case study Great Brak estuary, Eden District, Southern Cape
thesis_degree_str Doctoral
title Deriving a policy document towards an early warning system for estuaries in South Africa: case study Great Brak estuary, Eden District, Southern Cape
title_full Deriving a policy document towards an early warning system for estuaries in South Africa: case study Great Brak estuary, Eden District, Southern Cape
title_fullStr Deriving a policy document towards an early warning system for estuaries in South Africa: case study Great Brak estuary, Eden District, Southern Cape
title_full_unstemmed Deriving a policy document towards an early warning system for estuaries in South Africa: case study Great Brak estuary, Eden District, Southern Cape
title_short Deriving a policy document towards an early warning system for estuaries in South Africa: case study Great Brak estuary, Eden District, Southern Cape
title_sort deriving a policy document towards an early warning system for estuaries in south africa case study great brak estuary eden district southern cape
topic oceanography
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/32381
work_keys_str_mv AT standerjohan derivingapolicydocumenttowardsanearlywarningsystemforestuariesinsouthafricacasestudygreatbrakestuaryedendistrictsoutherncape

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