A MANAGEMENT TOOL FOR THE INKOMATI BASIN WITH FOCUS ON IMPROVED HYDROLOGICAL UNDERSTANDING FOR RISK- BASED OPERATIONAL WATER MANAGEMENT.

There is a need in modern water resources management, particularly in river basins that are said to be closing to use new approaches to reconcile the often contrasting requirements of diverse stakeholders, geo-politics and the environmental constraints of that basin. There is a particular need to focus attention to non-structural approaches, since the addition of traditional (infra-)structural approaches are often costly providing only small increments in water yield. The range of non-structural approaches varies enormously, but often integrate a variety of solutions from implementing alternative engineering approaches, new river modelling techniques, water conservation & water demand management to inclusive social interaction and formalised adaptation strategies. However all these require that water resource managers become more familiar with the emergent physical properties of a river basin and knowledge of its inherent uncertainties, and thereto integrate this into their decision-making frameworks. The Incomati River Basin is extremely important as a water resource shared between South Africa, Swaziland and Mozambique and it too is a rapidly closing river basin. In South Africa, the Inkomati catchment forms a Water Management Area (WMA) with the country’s first Catchment Management Agency, the Inkomati Catchment Management Agency (ICMA). The ICMA applied the non-structural framework of Strategic Adaptive Management (SAM) as its modus operandi. The cornerstone of SAM is to generate management decisions that take cognizance of a systems variability, and that are reached through consensus which is strategic, adaptive to change and also creative. This is to provide a partnership in the management of the resource that is inclusive of both science and society (Rogers et al., 2000). The ICMA applies SAM at the water resources management level, but also utilises its principles at the level of governance and oversight and thus, requires information systems that are reflective and applicable to this approach.