Y1 Progress report | Tafadzwa Maramura

Integrating Smart Technologies in Community-Led Water Governance

for Climate Adaptation in Cape Town

During Year 1, the following core research activities were completed:

• Publications and Outputs: Two systematic review articles directly stemming from the project were submitted to and accepted by a Taylor & Francis Q2 journal. Furthermore, one book chapter was accepted by the United Nations Economic Commission after being presented at a workshop.

• Project Setup: The research team was established, all research instruments were developed, and institutional ethical clearance for research was successfully obtained.

• Stakeholder Engagement & Visibility: A radio interview was conducted on Vaal FM, and a podcast was recorded to increase public visibility of the project's work.

• Networking and Conferences: Attended a research visit to the Tengeru Institute of Community Development (22–30 November 2025) to engage with Dr Agnes Kapinga on Community Development and Climate Resilience, leveraging our shared research cluster:

  • Attended the International Water Association (IWA) Water and Development Congress & Exhibition in Thailand in December 2025, where I presented a paper and chaired a session.

  • Attended the Science Diplomacy Workshop in Cape Town in June 2026, which was funded by the NRF and ISTIC.

Ongoing Research Progress: The following activities were in progress or showed ongoing momentum during the reporting period.

• Future Data Extraction: Because two chapters of the systematic review were published after preliminary secondary data collection, I plan to extract two additional chapters for review from the ongoing empirical data collection.

• Collaboration with Dr Enoch Agyekum: A research visit to Accra to meet with Dr Enoch Agyekum is being organised for September 2026. As we are part of the same Climate Resilience research cluster and both engaged in Sustainable Resources, we have already co-authored three peer-reviewed articles (published) and three additional chapters currently under review. The planned visit is intended to facilitate further engagement between like-minded researchers.

• Upcoming Conference Presentations: I plan to attend the Water Institute of Southern Africa (WISA) Conference in Cape Town in July 2026, accompanied by two students I supervise (one post-doc and one master's student). I am scheduled to attend the IWA (International Water Association) Congress in Scotland in October 2026 to present preliminary findings from the project's systematic review.

Challenges Encountered: The application process for ethical clearance was tedious and experienced significant delays at the University of the Free State (UFS). Ultimately, only conditional approval was granted, largely because the City of Cape Town was delaying the issuance of the required gatekeeping permission.

Transdisciplinarity: The project investigated climate resilience and water resource management in vulnerable Cape Town communities in the digital era through community governance. It aimed to bridge the gap between municipal urban planning policies and grassroots adaptation strategies through empirical data collection and systematic reviews informed by the communities at the receiving end. Initially, I viewed transdisciplinary research as simply combining different academic fields. Over the past year, I realised it actually meant dissolving the boundary between academia and the community. It shifted from merely consulting stakeholders to actively co-producing knowledge with them and municipal practitioners. Positively, I found that communities possessed a deep, practical understanding of local water vulnerabilities and were eager to share their lived experiences. Negatively, I encountered severe "research fatigue." Because they had been studied extensively by previous researchers without yielding tangible benefits, building initial trust and securing participation were slow and difficult processes.

Annual report submitted by Dr Tafadzwa Maramura

(summarised for publication by Heidi Sonnekus for the FAR-LeaF Programme)