Durban — Durban’s Transformative Riverine Management Programme (TRMP) an innovative, local, community-based urban river management system could set an important international precedent for urban river management, said Geoff Tooley, senior manager, Catchment Management for the eThekwini municipality, at a funding hand-over meeting which took place in Durban recently.
The Cities and Climate In Africa (CICLIA), a €12.4-million project preparation facility co-funded by the EU, the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) and managed by Agence Française de Développement (AFD), is providing financial support for the city of Durban’s TRMP.
Tooley explained that torrential floods that had caused massive damage and loss of life in April, had inadvertently assisted with the promotion of the TRMP to industry and residents by showing how the Sihlanzimvelo Stream Cleaning Programme (initiated in 2011), which formed the foundation for the project, had actually helped avoid damage resulting from heavy rains.
“Eighty percent of blockages that led to massive infrastructural damage were caused by alien vegetation with a far smaller portion attributed to build-ups of solid waste such as plastics.
“Historically, culverts were designed using hydraulic capacity calculations and did not factor in the debris carried by rivers during storm events,” said Tooley.
Sihlanzimvelo employs co-operatives of between eight and 10 people from local communities to clear 5km stretches of the river together with three-metre corridors on either side of the water of alien vegetation and waste. They also report sewer leaks or blocked manholes.
Durban currently has 105 active co-ops who report to locally based assessors who are trained to both support the co-ops and assess their progress according to pre-agreed requirements.
Tooley said that Sihlanzimvelo had grown its reach from 295km to 525km, with ongoing work done in KwaMashu, Inanda, Ntuzuma and Umlazi creating clean public spaces that are now suitable for recreation and 800 jobs have been created.
The C40 Cities Finance Facility supported TRMP for four years.
A resulting R8 billion business case and cost-benefit analysis that had been done illustrated how using a similar model to manage the entire 7 400km of rivers and streams within the city’s boundaries could assist the city in future.
Zoé Ramondou, AFD municipalities and urban development team project manager hoped the study will deliver very practical tools to facilitate the planning and management of these catchments.
Tooley noted that alien vegetation also crowded out the indigenous, slower-growing, deeper-rooted plants.
Deeper-rooted plants ensure better bank stability and therefore better protection for the property and infrastructure adjacent to the rivers.
He said the economic benefits of this project included not only job and business creation but also the retention of money in local communities supporting local businesses, as people were able to work closer to home.
Tooley said the city had calculated that, if the project was rolled out over the full 1 200km of rivers and streams crossing municipal land, this would provide an estimated R177 million in benefits to the city (at a cost of R92m) and create 1 500 jobs.
The next challenge is the rollout of river management programmes across privately owned and tribal trust land. Research along the Ohlanga River (further extrapolated for the whole city, supported by the C40 CFF funding) revealed that R7.5bn in public and private investment would be needed over the next 20 years.
The next step is to identify partnerships and role players within three spaces – the Umhlangane River catchment, the Palmiet River catchment and the Umhlatuzana River catchment – and to develop on-the-ground implementation plans that will serve as a blueprint for businesses and property owners to fund co-operatives to clear rivers and streams on privately owned and tribal trust land.
It is this important next step of work that is to be funded by the latest tranche of funding from CICLIA.
Daily News