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Research to fight water pollution in the eastern Free State

21 June 2021 | Story Dr Patricks Voua Otomo

The month of June is earmarked for the celebration of National Environment Month, with the South African government and captains of industry leading the way by stimulating awareness on environmental issues and challenging everyone to become agents for change. World Environment Day, the biggest annual event of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), is commemorated on 5 June, with the aim of galvanising positive environmental action. The University of the Free State (UFS) – through researchers from the Afromontane Research Unit (ARU) housed on the Qwaqwa Campus of the UFS – is playing its part in the fight against pollution, and especially water pollution in the eastern Free State.

The ARU initiated a research project in 2021, focusing on the assessment of the quality of local natural water resources in order to foster sustainable development in Phuthaditjhaba, and because of the recurring challenges pertaining to water quality and quantity in the Maluti-a-Phofung (MAP) Local Municipality. For the first such project focusing exclusively on pollution issues in a select Afromontane region – led by Dr Patricks Voua Otomo, Head of the Ecotoxicology Research Laboratory and Subject Head: Zoology and Entomology in the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences – a vibrant team of ARU scientists and students set out to determine the ecotoxicological and bacteriological state of water resources in MAP. With the permission of MAP, ARU researchers and students were allowed access to municipal wastewater treatment plants in the towns of Phuthaditjhaba and Harrismith, and ethical clearance from the UFS permitted limited environmental sampling and laboratory testing using live organisms such as snails and earthworms.

Focusing on the quality of natural water bodies
In November 2016, Ms Portia Mosolloane (2016 honours student) presented the preliminary findings of the project at an ARU colloquium held in the Golden Gate Highlands National Park. Her work has drawn attention to potential localised incidents of terrestrial contamination linked to sewage sludge management in the region. Those early findings were published internationally, and in May 2018, Ms Mosolloane went on to present her research at the 28th Annual Meeting of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) in Rome, Italy.

In an attempt to mitigate sewage sludge-induced soil pollution, Ms Nomasonto Dlamini (master’s student) conducted research from 2018 on the potential beneficial effects of biochar amendment on the sewage sludge as an alternative management strategy. The results revealed that mixing biochar with sewage sludge prior to open-air storage would significantly decrease the toxic effects on terrestrial organisms such as oligochaetes. This work is still ongoing, although in May 2019, Ms Dlamini presented some of her findings at the Fifth World Congress on Risk Development and Resilience in Cape Town.

From the start, an important focus of our research has been the quality of natural water bodies in our region and its ability to support life. In 2020, Ms Mosolloane graduated cum laude with a Master of Science, having successfully established that, particularly along polluted and degraded sections of our rivers, the diversity of riparian invertebrate was heavily skewed and reduced. Her work on water quality has suggested that our failing wastewater treatment plants (due to ageing, capacity overload, and poor management) are contributing to the release of pathogenic bacteria such as Escherichia coli in the local rivers.

Mr Mbuyiselwa Moloi (a 2020 Master of Science graduate from the project) found through his research that wastewater treatment plants only contribute partially to river pollution in the region. His work, focusing on metal pollution in the Elands River (Phuthaditjhaba) and the Wilge River (Harrismith), established that although there is evidence of metal enrichment after wastewater processing by the treatment plants, some of the metal in the rivers emanates from the communities that, due to the lack of adequate refuse removal services, often dispose of their household waste directly into the rivers. Mr Moloi’s research was presented at the 2019 International Mountain Conference in Innsbruck, Austria, and was subsequently published in the International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health in 2020.

Ms Matseleng Semase (a 2020 Master of Science graduate from the project) worked on establishing whether the quality of the effluent released from the local wastewater treatment plants was conducive to supporting aquatic life. Using a snail species in the laboratory, she found that although of substandard quality, the effluent released from the treatment plants did not hamper growth and reproduction in her test organism. This pointed to the fact that corrective measures could still be taken to reduce the harmful impact of wastewater management processes on river health in the eastern Free State. Ms Semase’s work was presented at the 9th SETAC Africa Biennial Conference held in Cape Town in 2019, and her findings were submitted for publication in Environmental Science and Pollution Research.

First such project focusing exclusively on pollution issues
Some of our findings infused new life into the project, steering our work in unexpected directions. Early in the project we came to realise that there was a paucity of research focusing on pollution in mountain areas in South Africa and in Africa at large. Mr Hendrik Stander joined the project in 2019 as a master’s student. His task was to work on the development of fast and reliable behavioural testing protocols that could be used in the project. His preliminary findings were presented at the 40th annual meeting of SETAC North America in Toronto, Canada, and were subsequently published in the Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology. Ms Sanele Mnkandla, who joined the project as a PhD candidate in 2020, is working on proposing water remediation strategies that could help improve the state of the rivers in the region. She recently submitted a review article on the topic for publication in Environmental Evidence. Another review article in the making and focusing on literature evidence of mountain pollution in Africa, is the brainchild of Dr Ozekeke Ogbeide, a collaborator from the University of Benin (Nigeria), who co-supervised several students and co-authored some of the scientific publications from the project.

This ongoing research, under the auspices of the ARU, is the first such project focusing exclusively on pollution issues in a select Afromontane region. With Ms Dlamini, Mr Stander, and Ms Mnkandla still actively involved in the project, we look forward to finding more answers to the environmental challenges of the eastern Free State and to working together with MAP towards environmental sustainability in the region.

News Archive

Gender bias still rife in African Universities

2007-08-03

At the lecture were, from the left: Prof. Magda Fourie (Vice-Rector: Academic Planning), Prof. Amina Mama (Chair: Gender Studies, University of Cape Town), Prof. Engela Pretorius (Vice-Dean: Humanties) and Prof. Letticia Moja (Dean: Faculty of Health Sciences).
Photo: Stephen Collett

Gender bias still rife in African Universities

Women constitute about 30% of student enrolment in African universities, and only about 6% of African professors are women. This is according to the chairperson of Gender Studies at the University of Cape Town, Prof Amina Mama.

Prof Mama was delivering a lecture on the topic “Rethinking African Universities” as part of Women’s Day celebrations at the University of the Free State (UFS) today.

She says the gender profile suggests that the majority of the women who work in African universities are not academics and researchers, but rather the providers of secretarial, cleaning, catering, student welfare and other administrative and support services.

She said that African universities continue to display profound gender bias in their students and staffing profiles and, more significantly, are deeply inequitable in their institutional and intellectual cultures. She said women find it difficult to succeed at universities as they are imbued with patriarchal values and assumptions that affect all aspects of life and learning.

She said that even though African universities have never excluded women, enrolling them presents only the first hurdle in a much longer process.

“The research evidence suggests that once women have found their way into the universities, then gender differentiations continue to arise and to affect the experience and performance of women students in numerous ways. Even within single institutions disparities manifest across the levels of the hierarchy, within and across faculties and disciplines, within and between academic and administrative roles, across generations, and vary with class and social background, marital status, parental status, and probably many more factors besides these”, she said.

She lamented the fact that there is no field of study free of gender inequalities, particularly at postgraduate levels and in the higher ranks of academics. “Although more women study the arts, social sciences and humanities, few make it to professor and their research and creative output remains less”, she said.

Prof Mama said gender gaps as far as employment of women within African universities is concerned are generally wider than in student enrolment. She said although many women are employed in junior administrative and support capacities, there continues to be gross under-representation of women among senior administrative and academic staff. She said this disparity becomes more pronounced as one moves up the ranks.

“South African universities are ahead, but they are not as radically different as their policy rhetoric might suggest. A decade and a half after the end of apartheid only three of the 23 vice-chancellors in the country are women, and women fill fewer than 30% of the senior positions (Deans, Executive Directors and Deputy Vice-Chancellors)”, she said.

She made an observation that highly qualified women accept administrative positions as opposed to academic work, thus ensuring that men continue to dominate the ranks of those defined as ‘great thinkers’ or ‘accomplished researchers’.

“Perhaps women simply make realistic career choices, opting out of academic competition with male colleagues who they can easily perceive to be systematically advantaged, not only within the institution, but also on the personal and domestic fronts, which still see most African women holding the baby, literally and figuratively”, she said

She also touched on sexual harassment and abuse which she said appears to be a commonplace on African campuses. “In contexts where sexual transactions are a pervasive feature of academic life, women who do succeed are unlikely to be perceived as having done so on the basis of merit or hard work, and may be treated with derision and disbelief”, she said.

She, however, said in spite of broader patterns of gender and class inequality in universities, public higher education remains a main route to career advancement and mobility for women in Africa.

“Women’s constrained access has therefore posed a constraint to their pursuit of more equitable and just modes of political, economic and social development, not to mention freedom from direct oppression”, she said.

Prof Mama concluded by saying, “There is a widely held agreement that there is a need to rethink our universities and to ensure that they are transformed into institutions more compatible with the democratic and social justice agendas that are now leading Africa beyond the legacies of dictatorship, conflict and economic crisis, beyond the deep social divisions and inequalities that have characterised our history”.

She said rethinking universities means asking deeper questions about gender relations within them, and taking concerted and effective action to transform these privileged bastions of higher learning so that they can fulfil their pubic mandate and promise instead of lagging behind our steadily improving laws and policies.

Media Release
Issued by: Mangaliso Radebe
Assistant Director: Media Liaison
Tel: 051 401 2828
Cell: 078 460 3320
E-mail: radebemt.stg@ufs.ac.za
02 August 2007

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