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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Water
Sec. Water Resource Management
Volume 7 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/frwa.2025.1376943
This article is part of the Research Topic Water Governance Across Management Scales View all 7 articles
Assessment of Climate Change, Water Resource Management, Adaptation and Governance in South Africa
Provisionally accepted
Ahmed Mukalazi Kalumba 1
Gbenga Abayomi Afuye 1* Sonwabo Perez Mazinyo 1
Leocadia Zhou 1
Richard Kwame Adom 2
Mulala Danny Simatele 2
Dillip Das 3- 1 University of Fort Hare, Alice, South Africa
- 2 University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
- 3 University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
The study explored the intellectual domain of climate change, water resource management, adaptation, and governance (CCWRM_AG), identifying research hotspots, and proposing solutions to address water scarcity and environmental impacts in South Africa. In total, 1117 original published studies in BibTeX format were obtained using Web of Science and Scopus databases from 1997 to 2022. The data analyzed on CCWRM_AG includes top-cited articles and the distribution of author keywords, most-cited journals, word cloud, thematic evolution and top author affiliations. The National Integrated Water Information System (NIWIS) database was utilised to monitor and assess the potential for water shortages in South Africa. The CCWRM_AG field in South Africa is experiencing an 18.98% annual growth in citations per article, with the University of Kwazulu-Natal and the University of Cape Town ranking first with the highest total number of published top articles, indicating their significant influence and associated research centres. Based on the top keyword, climate change and water resource scarcity are central to issues related to drought and water shortage, indicating a hint of the relatedness for further studies. The spatial data analysis shows that Western Cape province is severely impacted by water shortages, affecting water quality, agriculture and livelihoods due to low dam levels, while Northern Cape faces water scarcity in its arid lands. The findings of this study can enhance the multifaceted approach that integrates robust water governance infrastructure, regulatory policies, and economic incentives to mitigate water scarcity and environmental impacts.
Keywords: climate change adaptation, institutional water governance, water policy, Water resource management, water scarcity
Received: 26 Jan 2024; Accepted: 17 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Kalumba, Afuye, Mazinyo, Zhou, Adom, Simatele and Das. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Gbenga Abayomi Afuye, University of Fort Hare, Alice, 5700, South Africa
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.