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Saldanha Bay as a living space: negotiating (re)source dynamics in a water scarce Bay

Saldanha Bay, South Africa's second busiest port, exists as a complex set of living systems, poised at the interchange between land and water. Because of its role as a port city, it is a place where water systems, transport routes, and industrial activity meet and intermingle. This thesis focuses on...

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Main Author: Malan, Hayden Barratt
Other Authors: Klitzner, Tarna
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: School of Architecture, Planning and Geomatics 2021
Subjects:
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access_status_str Open Access
author Malan, Hayden Barratt
author2 Klitzner, Tarna
author_browse Klitzner, Tarna
Malan, Hayden Barratt
author_facet Klitzner, Tarna
Malan, Hayden Barratt
author_sort Malan, Hayden Barratt
collection Thesis
description Saldanha Bay, South Africa's second busiest port, exists as a complex set of living systems, poised at the interchange between land and water. Because of its role as a port city, it is a place where water systems, transport routes, and industrial activity meet and intermingle. This thesis focuses on the threat that is posed to the ecosystems of the bay through repeatedly introducing copious amounts of ballast water from the holds of international cargo ships (Duncan, 2014; Marangoni, Pienaar, & Sym, 2001). Paradoxically, it is the entangled routes and systems that led to the disastrous degradation of marine life that suggest Saldanha Bay's potential for sustaining a more symbiotic water system. The main design objective is to mitigate the degradation of the marine environment by filtering ballast water to rid it of invasive non-indigenous species (NIS). The central design proposes to filter ballast water through onshore abalone farming and concurrently generate onshore seaweed feed and farming. Such filtration would rely on the environment created by naturally occurring seaweeds, Ecklonia maxima and Gracilaria, which have great potential to further support ecological functioning. The site of this project is an abandoned iron ore factory, which is well-situated to be repurposed for water filtration. It is not only the saline water system that will benefit from such an intervention: to repurpose the factory site in a way that rejuvenates both the health of the bay's waters and the economy, would be to fulfil the promise of job security that the community was led to expect when the factory was originally constructed. Furthermore, if the ballast water were desalinated and reintroduced as a source of much-needed fresh water, it would support other living systems in the town and surrounding community. The interdependent industries of ballast water maintenance, fresh water sourcing, and mariculture would work together to make each more resilient and provide opportunities for people to be grounded in their environment.
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institution University of Cape Town (South Africa)
language eng
last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:32:58.612Z
license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
publishDate 2021
publishDateRange 2021
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publisher School of Architecture, Planning and Geomatics
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spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/35436 Saldanha Bay as a living space: negotiating (re)source dynamics in a water scarce Bay Malan, Hayden Barratt Klitzner, Tarna Landscape Architecture Saldanha Bay, South Africa's second busiest port, exists as a complex set of living systems, poised at the interchange between land and water. Because of its role as a port city, it is a place where water systems, transport routes, and industrial activity meet and intermingle. This thesis focuses on the threat that is posed to the ecosystems of the bay through repeatedly introducing copious amounts of ballast water from the holds of international cargo ships (Duncan, 2014; Marangoni, Pienaar, & Sym, 2001). Paradoxically, it is the entangled routes and systems that led to the disastrous degradation of marine life that suggest Saldanha Bay's potential for sustaining a more symbiotic water system. The main design objective is to mitigate the degradation of the marine environment by filtering ballast water to rid it of invasive non-indigenous species (NIS). The central design proposes to filter ballast water through onshore abalone farming and concurrently generate onshore seaweed feed and farming. Such filtration would rely on the environment created by naturally occurring seaweeds, Ecklonia maxima and Gracilaria, which have great potential to further support ecological functioning. The site of this project is an abandoned iron ore factory, which is well-situated to be repurposed for water filtration. It is not only the saline water system that will benefit from such an intervention: to repurpose the factory site in a way that rejuvenates both the health of the bay's waters and the economy, would be to fulfil the promise of job security that the community was led to expect when the factory was originally constructed. Furthermore, if the ballast water were desalinated and reintroduced as a source of much-needed fresh water, it would support other living systems in the town and surrounding community. The interdependent industries of ballast water maintenance, fresh water sourcing, and mariculture would work together to make each more resilient and provide opportunities for people to be grounded in their environment. 2021-12-09T12:32:45Z 2021-12-09T12:32:45Z 2021 2021-12-09T09:54:54Z Master Thesis Masters MLA http://hdl.handle.net/11427/35436 eng application/pdf School of Architecture, Planning and Geomatics Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment
spellingShingle Landscape Architecture
Malan, Hayden Barratt
Saldanha Bay as a living space: negotiating (re)source dynamics in a water scarce Bay
thesis_degree_str Master's
title Saldanha Bay as a living space: negotiating (re)source dynamics in a water scarce Bay
title_full Saldanha Bay as a living space: negotiating (re)source dynamics in a water scarce Bay
title_fullStr Saldanha Bay as a living space: negotiating (re)source dynamics in a water scarce Bay
title_full_unstemmed Saldanha Bay as a living space: negotiating (re)source dynamics in a water scarce Bay
title_short Saldanha Bay as a living space: negotiating (re)source dynamics in a water scarce Bay
title_sort saldanha bay as a living space negotiating re source dynamics in a water scarce bay
topic Landscape Architecture
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/35436
work_keys_str_mv AT malanhaydenbarratt saldanhabayasalivingspacenegotiatingresourcedynamicsinawaterscarcebay