Planning Beyond the Next Drought : Spatial planning, municipal governance arrangement and urban water management in Windhoek, Namibia

Sammanfattning

Windhoek, Namibia’s capital, has been living with water scarcity for decades. It is not just coming and going droughts, it is a structural prerequisite that shapes how the city can grow, how it is planned, and how people can live their lives. Climate change makes this worse by increasing the uncertainty regarding precipitation and speeding up evaporation from water reservoirs. In a rapidly growing city, the water demand also increases which puts pressure on already stressed systems. This thesis examines how spatial planning in Windhoek relates to the long-term water scarcity, and how governance, that is, how responsibilities, collaboration, and instruments are organised, affects the spatial planning's ability to address the issue. The thesis has studied strategic documents from the city’s municipality and interviewed actors within the water sector. The study shows that water scarcity is often admitted as a long-term structural issue via both formal documents and interviews, but that the planning practice continues to be reactive rather than proactive. There exists knowledge about the issue, but it is not always translated into action. There is sometimes a lack of political willingness to prioritise the water issue before urban growth and economic interests. But when both knowledge and willingness exist, is the implementation often hindered by the lack of resources, unclear mandates, and weak collaboration between actors. Power relations play an important role. Decision-making is dominated by a few actors, while other voices is rarely heard. Conflicts arise between sectorial interests: water competes against the need of land, infrastructure, growth and agriculture. Despite this, strategic spatial planning can be used to better integrate water issues in the city’s long-term development, coordinate actors, and create structures for adaptation and learning. But this demands that water scarcity is treated as a strategic planning issue, not solely technical. Ultimately, the study concerns about more than Windhoek. It shows how planning, governance, and climate uncertainty interact in a city where the water is not enough and what is needed to transform from crisis management to long-term sustainability.