1 – Introduction

Gauteng¹ the economic engine of South Africa stretches from Pretoria in the north to Vereeniging in the South. After the abolishment of Apartheid in 1994, an amalgamation of 13 local municipalities created the Gauteng province, with Johannesburg as its administrative capital. Today, it is home to 15.2 million people, 25.8% of the country’s total population constricted in 18,182 sq.km, just about 1.4% of total land area (Statistics South Africa, 2019). The Magaliesberg mountain range in the centre and the Witwatersrand² to its south characterized by ridgelines, hills, narrow valleys, undulating plains, and waterways bisect and make the natural barrier in the region (Murray, 2010).

From the early paleolithic times, the open vastness of the region provided food, shelter, and incubation that facilitated in the evolution of Early Humans from hunter-gatherers to primitive agricultural societies. During the South African Iron Age (12-18th century), advancements in metallurgy and metalworking not only exploited the Witwatersrand ridge, but caused internal warfare amongst different tribal ethnicities resulting in large-scale depopulation of the region prior to the migration of ‘Boer’ migrants (Knight, 2018). The discovery of gold reserves on the east-west ridgeline turned farming lands into mining fields overnight, and quickly informal mining camps were established in the countryside. An isolated town was established north of the mining operations to facilitate water supply to mining operations and accommodate the huge influx of miners (Boal, 2001).

At the turn of 20th century, the densely packed mining town metamorphosed into a vibrant European outpost of 120,000 residents surpassing Cape Town that had been established 200 years earlier (Murray, 2010, p. 38). For more than a century, the perpetual growth of Johannesburg, largely shaped by peripheral urbanization during the apartheid era for social control and today, it is majorly dominated by real-estate capitalism. The biggest impediment of Johannesburg’s growth as prophesied by scientific experts and authorities is that the water demand will outstrip the limited water supply as the perpetual urbanism developed away from a sustainable water resource (Heerden & Blignaut, 2009; Turton et.al, 2007).

The thesis volume 1 is an urban exploration and understanding of the underlying elements that spatially connect the defragmented urban pockets of Johannesburg from the theoretical lens of climate change. The consequences of climate crisis on the larger scale of the city will be enumerated using scientific climate models. Furthermore, Vol. 2 and Vol. 3 demarcated on the map (study areas 2 and 3) delves deeper into role of nature in the spatial configuration and shall propose suitable adaptation and mitigation strategies for the climate-stressed regions of Johannesburg.

1 - Colloquially translated as ‘place of gold’ in Sesotho language or thought to have originated from the Dutch word for gold / ’goud’

2 - ‘Witwatersrand’ in Afrikaans means the ‘ridge of white-water’ denotes the intertwined landscape relationship of topography and rivers