Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
scale will likely affect the ability of vulnerable communities to secure
traditional livelihoods, meet their food needs, and protect their cultural
identities. In the long term, such impacts will likely entrench already
existing relations of dependence, domination, and exclusion in the city,
and intensify sociospatial inequities between groups.
Climate Impacts on Traditional Livelihoods
The IDP notes the need for
eThekwini to promote social development programs through the “imple-
mentation and promotion of food security,” and through the protection
of food resources for vulnerable communities (EThekwini Municipality
2008, 52). At the baseline, sub-Saharan Africa already has signifi cant
environmental handicaps in the arena of food production, such as limited
water resources and nutrient-defi cient soils. These environmental condi-
tions are likely to be intensifi ed by climate change. In Durban, declining
crop yields and reduced food production can be expected as temperatures
change, water availability decreases, and seasonal droughts become more
common. In turn, such declines will have an impact on the food supply
chain in terms of the availability and distribution of food for the whole
Durban population.
Over time, all of these factors will combine to impact the ability of
traditional farming communities to secure sustainable livelihoods as they
depend on agricultural activities to meet their nutritional and food secu-
rity needs (Golder Associates 2008. This is especially true in the periur-
ban and rural wards of Durban. Today, farming communities in Durban
grow seventeen different types of vegetables and fourteen different types
of fruit. Of particular concern in terms of climatic impacts is the future
viability of maize, given its importance as the predominant subsistence
crop. Currently the majority of the city shows a moderate potential for
the production of maize under subsistence management conditions (from
1.5 to 3.1 tons/ha/annum). However, the situation changes rapidly with
an increase in temperature of one degree Celsius, with the majority of
the area becoming unsuitable, and only a few small patches retaining
their original predicted yield. With an additional degree, almost the
entire area becomes unsuitable, and with an increase of three degrees,
the entire municipal area is unsuitable (Golder Associates 2008).
Such impacts will likely increase poverty, as communities see the pro-
ductivity of staple crops decline. Eventually, poor communities might be
unable to perform small-scale traditional agriculture because of shifts in
agriculturally suitable zones and decreased water availability (CSIR NRE
2006). Municipal authorities will thus need to intervene to assist poor
