Rumbidzai Mashayahanya (Zimbabwe), Nexi Dennis (Seychelles), Ahmed Yacoub (Egypt)
Grahamstown Water Crisis
Restaurant business comes to a halt
The water crisis in Grahamstown is a never ending story which has brought both the business community and municipal authorities to their knees.
Introduction
Grahamstown is located in the Eastern Cape, South Africa and it is governed by the Makana Municipality.
It is located inland in a valley and is positioned on the Eastern periphery of the Mediterranean rainfall area which covers the Southern Cape which means that rainfall does not occur seasonally but rather irregularly throughout the year.
During water outages the people residing on the slopes of the valley receive water outages first due to the lack of pressure in the pipes therefore the water is less able to flow upwards due to gravity.
Grahamstown receives approximately 466mm of rain per year; the chart below illustrates the average rainfall values for Grahamstown per month.
It receives the lowest rainfall (16mm) in June and the highest (63mm) in March.
Methodology
Sampling frame was drawn from www.tripadvisor.co.za/Restaurants-g312557-Grahamstown_Eastern_Cape.html
With a total of 12 restaurants being selected randomly in the data gathering process.
In order to obtain the necessary information to complete the aim of this project the information gathered was analysed through the use of graphs such as bar graphs and statistics, which will include a presentation on Excel and Google Fusion Tables.
Challenges encountered
Data collected is based estimates and oral records
We were unable to access official sources due to lack of time and nationality
Lack of source diversity (But we were able to get information from local newspapers , Journals and YouTube)
Information collected could not be presented using the desired software programmes (Tableau, Outwit) due to technical security reasons and the programmes which are more compatible with larger scale.
Outcome
We managed to establish from the relevant sources that erratic rainfall patterns coupled with aging infrastructure, non-replacement of burst pipes, lack of skilled manpower and complacency of local authorities was the major reason for the water crisis in Grahamstown.
Due to the limited contribution of the Eastern Cape to the country’s GDP the problems plaguing the town would not take precedence over problems in more productive provinces of the state.
Conclusion
We learnt how to produce a complete new tools on data journalism and we were able to use these tools in our project to process raw data into useful , more comprehensive and meaningful information.
Our project can viewed on:
http://rumbidzai-mashayahanya.blogspot.com/2014/09/grahamstown-water-crisis.html
