Transfers of water in the Crocodile River above and below the gorge (near Nelspruit and Malelane) were studied based on a survey in the area during November 2003, followed up by telephonic interviewing during March 2004. Almost all the water trades (permanent and rentals) observed in this study...

The South African Water Research Commission (WRC) initiated a number of research projects aimed at determining the value of water in different sectors of the economy and in different parts of the country. This research is reviewed. Water values were found to differ significantly between sectors,...

The concept of capacity-sharing (as a specific type of demand-orientated water management strategy) is a relatively newcomer on the South African water management regime and much debate is currently under way regarding the viability of the concept for the South African context. One of the main...

Irrigation farmers in the Lower Orange River were surveyed during October 2003 in order to study whether water marketing has promoted efficiency and to identify factors that affect future investment in irrigation farming. Econometric procedures (principal component and logit model) indicate that...

The paper focuses on improvement in access to the natural resources land and water to bridge the economic divide in South African agriculture. The relevance of the approach to bridging the economic divide, progress made since 1994 in land and water reform and problems experienced and strategies...

Mathematical programming was used to optimise utility efficient deficit irrigation schedules for maize in Vaalharts, based on certainty equivalence assuming an exponential utility function. Total gross margin risk resulting from production risk of alternative deficit irrigation practices was...

Salinization of South African rivers is serious and has rendered some dams and reservoirs unsuitable for irrigation. The contribution of agriculture to the environmental problem of salinization was empirically analysed in this study. Linear regression models demonstrated that increases in the...

Irrigation farmers in the lower reaches of the Vaal and Riet Rivers are experiencing substantial yield reductions in certain crops and more profitable crops have been withdrawn from production, hypothesised, as a result of generally poor but especially fluctuating water quality. In this paper...

Deficit irrigation and increasing irrigation application efficiency were analysed as water-utilisation strategies through chance-constrained linear programming (CCLP) to establish whether these strategies were economically advantageous and water conserving. Deficit irrigation was modelled...

Technological information is used to assess KwaZulu-Natal commercial sugarcane farmers' intra-plot (panel) soil conservation relative to requirements of the Conservation of Natural Resources Act of 1983. Findings indicate that farmers consider enforcement of the Act to be unlikely and that 28...