University of Cape Town

CLIMATE VARIABILITY IN SOCIAL-ECOLOGICAL SYSTEMS OF THE SOUTHERN CAPE INTEGRATING FARMING AND FISHING PERSPECTIVES Catherine Dale Ward November 2018 Town Cape Thesis presented for the degreeof of Doctor of Philosophy In the Department of Environmental and Geographical Sciences University of Cape Town University SUPERVISORS Prof Astrid Jarre, Dr Georgina Cundill Kemp and Prof Guy Midgley The copyright of this thesis vests in the author. No quotation from it or information derivedTown from it is to be published without full acknowledgement of the source. The thesis is to be used for private study or non- commercial research purposes Capeonly. of Published by the University of Cape Town (UCT) in terms of the non-exclusive license granted to UCT by the author. University DECLARATION I know the meaning of plagiarism and declare that all of the work in this thesis, save for that which is properly acknowledged, is my own. This thesis has not been submitted in whole or in part for a degree at any other university. Signed: Date: July 2018 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF FUNDING Financial support was provided by the South African Research Chairs Initiative of the Department of Science and Technology and the National Research Foundation. The financial assistance of the National Research Foundation towards this research is hereby acknowledged. Opinions expressed and conclusions arrived at, are those of the author and are not necessarily to be attributed to the National Research Foundation. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It is with the first and greatest thanks to my supervisors Prof Astrid Jarre, Dr Georgina Cundill Kemp and Prof Guy Midgley for the invaluable support, guidance, motivation, encouragement and time given to me during this thesis. I would like to thank the South African Research Chairs Initiative of the Department of Science and Technology and the National Research Foundation for financial support through the South African Research Chair in Marine Ecology and Fisheries. I would also like to thank the South African Weather Service, Western Cape Department of Agriculture, Riversdale Co-operation, Tarron Lamont and Fabien Desbiolles for data contributions. I am very grateful to Muhammad Jamal for his valuable guidance when assisting me with data analyses. Thank you to the Integration and Application Network for the amazing material available on their online symbol library and to the UCT GIS Laboratory for assisting with map creation. I am very grateful to the support given to me in the southern Cape and would like to give special thanks to the farming and agricultural community for giving their time and invaluable contributions to this thesis. In particular I would like to thank Douglas Taylor, Ronny de Klerk, Elanore Nel and Hannetjie Ferguson. I am also very grateful to my research assistant, Evangeline Motley, for her dedication and good company for the many hours spent on the road. I am very appreciative for the support from the Southern Cape Interdisciplinary Fisheries project in both the office and in the field, with special thanks to Greg Duggan. In particular, thank you to Louise Gammage for all her invaluable support and sage advice. Thank you to the staff in the Biological Sciences Department, particularly to the ladies downstairs, for keeping the research running smoothly and fielding all my claims, requests and funding- related needs. I would like to give special thanks to Elizabeth for her daily pearls of wisdom and encouragement shared with the students in the department. Finally, thank you to my personal support base – family, friends and colleagues. Thanks to Emily McGregor for starting this journey and the many friends who shared a sympathetic ear throughout this process. Thank you to the SARChI lab for the tea support group and whimsical conversations. Thank you to my mother for undertaking the task of being editor-in-chief for this thesis, and thank you to my sister and father for all their encouragement and support. Finally, I would like to thank my better half, Sunny, for making sure this thing got done. ABSTRACT Large scale shifts playing out on global climate levels are manifesting locally in the South Africa’s terrestrial and marine ecosystems, where it is difficult to predict how different habitats may respond to these changes in natural systems, particularly at local levels. For example, the highly complex nature of climate variability in the southern Cape and on the Agulhas Bank, coupled with the lack of long-term environmental monitoring data, has resulted in knowledge gaps on how climate impacts these local social-ecological systems. This thesis focuses on bringing together knowledge systems from farmers, handline fishers and local scientific weather sources to examine climate variability in terrestrial and marine social-ecological systems of the southern Cape, in order to bring local perspectives into conversation with scientific data outputs. Through examining different knowledge systems in parallel and overlaying different perspectives and observations, this thesis contributes towards a better understanding of complex systems change, linked through the common thread of climate variability under a resilience lens, at the local scale of the southern Cape and Agulhas Bank. This thesis also contextualises responses to change under the theme of climate variability from farmers’ and fishers’ perspectives, and shows how different theoretical discourses can work in a complementary fashion to address complexity. The terrestrial component of this thesis examined local agricultural perspectives by surveying southern Cape farmers, and built in terrestrial scientific data through looking at local climate in relation to farming perspectives. Observations on terrestrial rainfall and temperatures were collected through interviews with 50 farmers, along with shared rainfall records from 13 farming families and ten official weather stations in the area. Fisher perspectives in relation to climate variability were then integrated with marine scientific data to examine the marine component of the Agulhas Bank. Fisher observations of climate variability were examined by drawing on existing research conducted through the South Coast Interdisciplinary Research Project. Marine wind data were obtained through model outputs from NCEP-DOE Reanalysis and a recent scatterometer-based product. i Overlaying these different bodies of knowledge reduced the uncertainties associated with any single set of observations and confirmed two environmental regime shifts in the region, in the mid-1990s and end-2000s. Local climate knowledge of farmers and fishers also overlapped and corroborated these environmental regime shifts. Changes in prevailing wind direction, rather than wind speed, were more prominent over time. While no clear trends of change over time were found in rainfall and temperature time series, decadal variability was present and after the mid-2000s, the onset of seasonal autumn rainfall was found to have shifted to a month later. Knowledge disconnects were broadly related to scale mismatches between fisher observations and marine data tendencies; complexities around freshwater availability; and shifting baselines of natural resources concerning present versus past variability observed by farmers and fishers. Responses to climate variability were complex and other stressors associated with economic and political challenges were usually seen as a greater threat to local livelihoods. However, climate stressors can push social-ecological systems into vulnerable states if not well integrated into adaptation strategies, which can have serious implications for future food and job security in the southern Cape. Local-based case studies such as this one increase understanding of local social-ecological systems under global change in an effort to contribute to future adaptation strategies in the southern Cape region. ii CONTENTS Page Abstract i Table of Contents iii List of Figures viii List of Tables xii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1 1.1. Overview 1 1.2. South Africa’s changing climate 3 1.2.1. Climate through a terrestrial lens 1.2.2. Climate through a marine lens 1.3. Farming and fishing in changing environments 6 1.3.1. Agriculture 1.3.2. Fisheries 1.4. Connecting knowledge systems 9 1.5. Situating this thesis 11 1.5.1. Objective 1.5.2. Key Questions 1.6. Thesis structure 13 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW AND RESEARCH APPROACH 15 2.1. Change in the Anthropocene 15 2.1.1. Climate variability and change 2.1.2. Ecological regime shifts 2.1.3. Changing land-use patterns 2.2. Responding to 21st century environmental challenges 20 2.2.1. Different academic discourses 2.2.2. Interpreting sustainability 2.3. A social-ecological systems perspective 24 2.3.1. Ecosystem services 2.3.2. Taking scale into consideration iii 2.4. Vulnerability, resilience and adaptive capacity 29 2.4.1. Unpacking core definitions 2.4.2. Focusing on resilience as a concept 2.4.3. Examining responses through adaptive capacity 2.5. Responding to uncertainty: Connecting knowledge systems 37 2.5.1. Examining diverse knowledge systems 2.5.2. Examining multiple knowledge systems 2.6. Over-arching research approach, design and methods 44 2.6.1. Approach 2.6.2. Design 2.6.3. Methods CHAPTER 3: THE CLIMATE PERSPECTIVE: SOUTHERN CAPE FARMING 49 COMMUNITIES 3.1. Introduction 49 3.2. Research area 50 3.2.1. Land use history 3.2.2. Southern Cape climate 3.2.2.1. Rainfall 3.2.2.2. Temperature 3.2.2.3. Local climatic changes 3.3. Methods 56 3.3.1. Data collection 3.3.1.1. Scoping phase 3.3.1.2. Interview development 3.3.1.3. Data collection phase 3.3.2. Analysis 3.4. Results 62 3.4.1. Local narratives 3.4.1.1. Agriculture overview 3.4.1.2. Change over time 3.4.1.3. Water: Example of multi-stressors 3.4.2. Agricultural profile 3.4.2.1. Area profile 3.4.2.2. Farmer typologies 3.4.2.3. Observed changes in farming practices 3.4.3. Local climate knowledge 3.4.3.1.

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