**4.2 The factors hindering the success of urban adaptation strategies in the Mopani region**

This section identifies the factors that inhibit the successes of urban adaptation to climate change hazards. Through our interactions with the households in the selected towns, the key informant (particularly the municipal staff and professionals) and other stakeholders, buttressed by the findings from the planning instruments (IDPs) of the five local municipalities in Mopani District, several inhibiting factors clogging the successes of urban climate change adaptation in these municipalities were uncovered. These out of others can be stratified into both internal and external factors. These are discussed as follow:

Internal factors are those factors that the local municipalities recognized as being within their mandates and powers, on one hand. These include but are not limited to paucity of fund, principally from budgetary allocation. Limited human capacity to embark on the required types of planning for integrated adaptation mainstreaming, compounded by the paucity of knowledge of adequate climate issues at the local municipal level. Higher competition that exist between the mandates of government, resulting in less priority being accorded to long-term planning issues (like climate change) in favor of short-term actions and gains. The Situation is further compounded by the South African need to tackle the backlogs of service amidst coping with both current and future needs of the people. Thus, rendering long-term interventions unattractive to politicians who run a short political tenure to execute. With long-term horizon nature of climate change projections, it contradicts with the short-term political and development programs of these municipalities.

In addition, system's failure manifest across the selected towns, for instance drainages and water ways blockages, absence of drainages in many instances, sewer leakages (like the case of Nkowankowa and Phalaborwa), and backlogs of service across the municipalities are clear indicators. Others factors include policy inadequacies resulting from municipal reliance on national policies (such as urban and other climate adaptation-related policies). The dichotomized land management and operational deficiencies where traditional institutions are in charge of unproclaim land with no responsibility to provide services. Absence of interface programs between the municipalities and the Universities and other research institutions for information and knowledge sharing as well-as research activities regarding climate change and urban development. There was equally no evidence to show collaborations with private sector (banks, insurance and individual philanthropists) on adaptation issues.

Furthermore, external factors include high poverty rate, low literacy level and unemployment. Lack of reliable and verifiable hazard incident reporting systems

*Natural Hazards - Impacts, Adjustments and Resilience*

specifications.

of the embankment as a strategy to cope with floods is that it fends off water and shelters settlements from flooding. About 58% of respondents was recorded in Modjadjiskloof and 32% in Phalaborwa, Hoedspruit was 23%, while Giyani and Nkowankowa both depicted 27% and 36% accordingly. In a further probe to why majority did not adopt the strategy, respondents noted it to be an expensive option, which often failed when the construction was not done to structural

With respect to the use of Sandbags, as a strategy, in Giyani 24% of the households indicated its adoption as the option to protect their properties against flood. In Nkowankowa 17%, Tzaneen was 11%, while Modjadjiskloof households accounted for 22% that used sandbags. The households' justification for the use of sandbags as a coping strategy to protect against flooding was hinged on its afford-

The use of furrow was equally investigated to ascertain whether or not is an acceptable strategy among the households in the district. The result indicates that 5% of Tzaneen residents are using Furrows around their properties, while about one in every four households in Nkowankowa adopted the same strategy. Households in Hoedspruit and Modjadjskloof that used the strategy accounted respectively for 16% and 36% and both Phalaborwa and Giyani accounted for 12% and 18%. The result suggest that the strategy was not embraced by the majority of the households across the selected towns. According to the respondents, the option was considered

The proportion of households' that adopts the building of protective walls around their houses to cope with flood in the six selected towns indicates that this is a commonly used strategy in the study area. Both Modjadjiskloof and Nkowankowa used it as a strategy mostly. With 76% of its household, Modjadjiskloof recorded the highest proportion of household that used the protective walls as strategy, while 18% of the households in Nkowankowa used the strategy. These results was significantly influenced by the terrain of individual towns under consideration as towns with relatively low lying terrain recorded lower patronage of the strategy, while

According to [80], Green infrastructure is useful in curtailing surface runoff among other benefits [81]. From the results of analysis, households' response with respect to growing grasses to reduce the effects of floods in the selected towns revealed that 60% of households in Hoedspruit grew lawn to reduce the flow of surface run off that erodes the top soil. The study showed that 37% of the households in Modjadjiskloof and 36% in Tzaneen grew lawn to reduce erosion while 2.5% and 20% employed the same strategy in Nkowankowa and Giyani towns respectively. This strategy apart from protecting the surface top soil from erosion, it also keep a

The respondents' answers to the cleaning and removal of waste from drainage channels and systems appeared an acceptable coping strategy across the selected towns in Mopani. 32% of households in Tzaneen do evacuate waste from drainages, while as low as 5% of Nkowankowa households used the strategy to avoid over flow of drainages. However, more than two out of every five Phalaborwa residents engaged in clearing of their drainages to prevent flooding. The study further shows that one tenth of Giyani household embraced the strategy as well. Further to this, drainage and stream channelization was popular, accounting for 25% of Tzaneen households, while one fifth of Hoedspruit households embraced drainage channel-

The use of concrete and stones by households to reinforce their housing foundation serves dual purposes as a way to stabilize the building as well-as safeguard it against any unexpected floods that can erode the building foundation.

ability, ease of building and availability of the material components.

costly and not an effective strategy compared to others.

town with steep slope like Modjadjiskloof adopted it most.

good ambient of the environment.

ization in coping with the incidence of flood.

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that can guarantee disaster hotspot identification and monitoring for early warning. Nevertheless, some of these identified factors (policy shortcomings, institutional weakness etc.), lack of political will plays a significant role.
