Evaluating the effectiveness of air quality management plans as a governance instrument in South Africa

Doctor of Philosophy Science with Geography and Environmental Management, North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus

Since the 19th century, industrialised societies introduced technologies to enhance economic production and productivity, most notably related to energy generation. These caused ever-increasing levels of air pollution. The ambient air quality has subsequently deteriorated significantly globally to become a major human health and environmental concern. In response, governments worldwide, including South Africa, have developed various policy responses and instruments to inform decision-making related to air emissions at different phases of the decision-making cycle. Conceptually, responses can be categorised along four approaches, namely command and control-based approaches, incentive and disincentive or fiscal-based approaches, agreement-based approaches and civil-based approaches. Each approach employs a range of policy instruments. One of the widely used instruments in managing air quality internationally and in South Africa is so-called air quality management plans (AQMPs), which is the focus of this research. An AQMP is defined as a policy instrument that critically considers the state of air quality in particular regions and provides measures to address identified air quality and pollution challenges. Moreover, these plans are expected to inform lower tiers of decision-making at the project level. However, despite introducing policy instruments such as AQMPs, the observed levels of particulate matter and ozone are increasing in many countries including South Africa’s areas declared as air quality priority areas or hotspots. This raises questions as to the effectiveness and efficacy of policy instruments. In considering different policy instruments, AQMPs are particularly important, because they provide strategic direction for decision-making and set overall objectives and strategies to be achieved in a particular context. Evaluating the effectiveness of AQMPs is a critical first step in gaining a better understanding of the performance of the overall national air quality governance system. For this reason, the research aims to evaluate the effectiveness of AQMPs in South Africa. To achieve this, a conceptualisation of air quality governance instruments in South Africa was conducted followed by the justification of theory of change (ToC) as a novel evaluation method for AQMPs. Subsequently, a criterion for evaluating AQMPs was developed and also applied to evaluate the effectiveness of the selected AQMP reports. Through the application of ToC, this research identified 15 key assumptions underpinning the AQMP development and implementation. These key assumptions are translated into 57 key performance indicators used to evaluate nine selected AQMP case studies within the South African context. The research results show that engineering control, air quality modelling, identification of sources, emission quantification, as well as air pollution risk assessment are the skills and competencies lacking among air quality officials (AQOs). This supports previous studies that found that lack of critical skill sets in municipalities is indeed still one of the underlying factors for poor or no implementation of AQMPs in South Africa. The results further show the lack of key resources such as lack of budgetary provisions, ambient air quality monitoring network within municipalities, no existing or non-functioning monitoring stations, no human and/or skills capacity for monitoring towards AQMP development and implementation. Other issues identified include poor or a lack of cooperative governance, stakeholder engagements, quality assurance and control of data, and cost-benefit intervention strategies. Results also found several gaps relating to report quality and completeness, including poor description of key matters such as geographical area, land use, topography, landscape and natural resources, demographics, socio-economic status, list of areas that use fossil fuels for domestic use, health status, inventories of industries that may cause air pollution and are not listed (e.g., controlled emitters), international agreements and best practice guidelines, pollutants affecting health, environmental impacts and matters related to climate change. These issues are found to be affecting the effectiveness of the current AQMP development and implementation process in South Africa. This research further finds that AQMP as a central air quality management policy instrument across the different spheres of government (i.e. some provincial, district and local municipalities) is currently not effective and is not achieving its outcomes or objectives. These objectives and intended outcomes include realising the NEM:AQA objectives, achieving compliance with the NAAQS, as well as realising a human environmental right prescribed in section 24 of the South African constitution. This research provides recommendations that can be adopted towards the improvement of the South African AQMP development and implementation process.

Doctoral