Abstract
Water scarcity is one of the most pressing environmental issues in the 21st century. Rural areas remain the most vulnerable to the impacts of water scarcity due to high dependence on rainfed agriculture and water supply challenges. In South Africa, municipal service delivery is problematic especially to remote rural areas, prompting the need to document traditional knowledge that has sustained life in those areas for centuries before this knowledge goes extinct. This study used qualitative and quantitative approaches to document traditional water conservation technologies in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa, the challenges and success of the technologies as well as the influence of demographic factors on traditional knowledge of water conservation. Data for this study were collected through face-to-face interviews and an online survey. The study documented 10 traditional water conservation strategies in the study area, such as Traditional Storage Tanks, Drums, Drip Irrigation, Drum System, Dam Construction, Traditional Irrigation Cans, Contour Ploughing, and those locally known as Ipitsi, Nkgo and Ingqayi...
M.Sc. (Geography, Environmental Management and Energy Studies)