The role of crises in transformative change towards sustainability

Figures & data

Table 1. Characteristics of a crisis.

Characteristic of a crisis	Determination based on factual knowledge (examples)	Determination based on social construction (examples)
Scale in space, jurisdiction (i.e. local, national, global), and time	System analysis of interdependent processes that influence a crisis	Deliberate emphasis of a spatial scale for political reasons e.g. to delegate responsibility
Uncertainty	Quantitative scenario analysis	Ambiguities due to different interpretations of the same factual knowledge base
Urgency	Quantification based on combination of a measure for damage and time scale of unfolding of a crisis	Downplaying consequences of a crisis and emphasizing negative consequences of crisis responses to delay action
Threat	Quantification of imminent dangers (costs, casualties) that may be caused by a crisis	Construction of a catastrophic crisis narrative
Internal versus external causes	System analysis of causal factors and their interdependence	Emphasis on external (e.g. climate change, virus) or internal (e.g. poor governance) causes for political reasons
(Perceived) ability to control the crisis	Availability of resources and ability to influence key factors that determine a crisis	Emphasizing an alleged ability to control the crises to calm the population

Table 2. Comparison of the characteristics of the COVID-19 pandemic and Cape Town water crisis.

	COVID-19	Cape Town water crisis
Spatial scale	Global, manifesting at national and local scales	Local, but with global events (e.g. climate change and foreign tourists) as key contributors
Time scale*	2020 to 2021 (current?) Unexpected emergence within months, expected duration - a few years until endemic	>2015 to 2019 Slow development over years, culmination over months, solution years to decades
Perceived urgency	Urgent, imminent with disastrous consequences for all	Latent, slow at the beginning but become imminent with time
Causes and triggers	Development and spread of the novel COVID-19 virus – the impact exacerbated by a limited health system, and governmental capacity to manage the crisis	A combination of a growing population, unsustainable consumption and governance failures in responding to predicted water demands exceeding supplies, exacerbated by drought
Uncertainty	High levels of uncertainty including origin, vulnerability, and potential impact	Climate change projections inherently include some uncertainty, but the potential for a water crisis event has been a strongly documented likelihood due to other events e.g. demand exceeding supply as a result of population growth, and supply augmentation not at a pace to meet demand.
Threat	Initially unknown, but comorbidities, old age and working in high-risk areas (e.g. hospitals) significantly increased likelihood of hospitalisation or death	Significant, with Cape Town potentially becoming the first major city in the world to run out of water
Ability to control the crisis	Limited control of a global pandemic driven by an airborne pathogen with potential for mutations	Limited control on directly increasing water supply (i.e. rainfall), but extensive control to decrease demand and potential control to pre-emptively increase supply (e.g. diversifying water sources)

*The timelines used are intended for orientation, rather than clearly demarcated periods as it can be disputed when exactly the crisis emerged, peaked, and then petered out. For example, the COVID-19 pandemic is still in effect at time of writing, yet lockdown measures have been notably eased.

Table 3. Overview of key insights and supporting literature cited on how the Cape Town water crisis unfolded in terms of narratives and responses, and emerging evidence of systemic and/or structural changes as potential indicators of learning towards transformative change. Additional literature is cited in the relevant subsections where needed to clarify context or examples.

	Insights from the Cape Town water crisis case study	Key supporting literature
Initial narrative and response	Technocratic, framed by biophysical considerations and driven by government	Bischoff-Mattson et al. (2020)
	Response focused on increased tariffs, water restrictions, reduced reticulation pressure, and water rationing	Enqvist and Ziervogel (2019); Millington and Scheba (2021)
	Uneven and unequal impact as elites and upper-middle class were able to by-pass these responses by accessing alternative water sources, but later social-economic considerations began to also take central stage. Implementation of measures, which sharpen the equity-efficiency trade-offs and brings to bear the imperatives for water reallocation in South Africa	Bischoff-Mattson et al. (2020); Enqvist and Ziervogel (2019); Savelli et al. (2021) Rawlins (2019)
Emerged narratives and responses	Pluralistic narrative promoted by diverse actor groupings	Bischoff-Mattson et al. (2020)
	Civil society promoted the narrative on socio-political and economic dimension, and supported the mobilising collective and relational agencies to respond to the crisis beyond technocratic interventions	Bruns (2019); Brick et al. (2018); Brick and Visser (2018)
	Government promoted a Day Zero narrative which resulted in induced short-term behavioural change but proved unsustainable in the long-run	Bruns (2019); Shepherd (2019); Warner and Meissner (2021)
Emergence of systemic and/or structural changes	Civil society mobilisation and citizens’ activism as “watchdogs” over water management issues	Herzog-Hawelka (2021)
	Innovative interventions regarding supply-demand management and behavioural change (benefiting some, but not others)	Taing et al. (2019); Savelli et al. (2021)
	Individuals with means using alternative water resources, e.g. going “off-grid” and decreased dependence on municipal-supplied water	Savelli et al. (2021)
	Recognition of the need to change structures and for a more systemic approach to water governance in terms of causes and the unfolding of the crisis, but these did not manifest in the solution discourses in the media	Jones et al. (2022)

Table 4. Overview of key insights and supporting literature cited on how the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded in terms of narratives and responses, and emerging evidence of systemic and/or structural changes as potential indicators of learning towards transformative change. Additional literature is cited in the relevant subsections where needed to clarify context or examples.

	Insights from the COVID-19 pandemic case study	Key supporting literature
Initial narrative and response	Technocratic, framed by epidemiology, and driven by government and experts	de Groot and Lemanski (2021); Muller (2021)
	Response focused on pharmaceutical (e.g. vaccines) and non-pharmaceutical measures (e.g. social-economic measures such as restrictions on movement, social gathering, border closure, economic stimulus packages, and mandatory wearing of face masks in public places) but was critiqued to be too narrowly technocratic overlooking socio-economic inequalities and other disparities	de Groot and Lemanski (2021); Francis et al. (2020); Mein (2020); Patel et al. (2020); Spaull et al. (2020); Simon et al. (2021); Visagie and Turok (2021)
Emerged narratives and responses	As the crisis prolonged, diverse actor grouping promoted diverse narratives e.g. anti-lockdown rhetoric, social-economic impacts on livelihoods and social security	Muller (2021); Naudé and Cameron (2021)
	Different perceptions of risk between socio-economic groups, possibly linked to having the means to follow the lockdown restrictions and regulations or not	Kollamparambil et al. (2021)
	Mobilisation of collective and relational agencies at the sub-national and communities’ level to e.g. avert hunger in poor communities due to prolonged lockdowns	de Groot and Lemanski (2021); Hamann et al. (2020)
Emergence of systemic and/or structural changes	Actors constellation and mobilisation forming new structures, networks, reorganisation, roles and processes	Hamann et al. (2020); Seekings and Nattrass (2020)
	Digitisation of education (for some)	Mhlanga and Moloi (2020); Fouche and Andrews (2022)

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