Integrated ICTs for Water Basins Management in Southern Africa: Systematic Review and Meta-analyses for Perceived Relevance Criteria

Hector MongiMarkus Meinhardt

DOI 10.7160/aol.2016.080208
No 2/2016, June
pp. 103-110

Mongi, H. and Meinhardt, M. (2016) “Integrated ICTs for Water Basins Management in Southern Africa: Systematic Review and Meta-analyses for Perceived Relevance Criteria ", AGRIS on-line Papers in Economics and Informatics, Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 103-110. ISSN 1804-1930. DOI 10.7160/aol.2016.080208.

Abstract

User-focused design and an implementation of a computer-based Information System (IS) or Information Technology (IT) are considered to play a key role in enhancing adoption, supporting activities and contributing to the sector specific sustainability goals. However, there are general concerns over the practical applications derived from records of failure rates of IS/IT projects in the developing world. This paper aggregates and analyzes stakeholders’ perceived usefulness criteria that were documented from water basin focusing on IS and related projects in Southern Africa. Systematic literature reviews and meta-analysis were adopted for data collection and analyses. Literature with academic, practice and hybrid viewpoints was collected from five water basins in Southern Africa. Designed data collection flow chart guided the search for appropriate literature. Analyses of the data were performed by using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). Results of the search were classified and presented basing on the domain, yearly waves from 2000 to 2015, trans-basin nature and basin of focus. Literature was distributed across the classes at different magnitudes. The study has found out that relevance criteria as measure of usefulness have been incorporated in designing and implementing the IS/IT projects in the river basins. However, incorporation of relevance criteria was periodically increasing with technological advancement and increasing complexity of managing the water basins. In general, it was responsive to increasing challenges of water resources in the developing countries. This anticipated better results at the levels of output, outcome and impacts of IS/IT projects in the Southern Africa. The study concludes that the current trends of incorporation of the relevance criteria in designing and implementing the IS/IT projects on water resources are potential for impact-based interventions in Southern Africa.

Keywords

Water basins, integrated ICTs, Southern Africa, relevance criteria, meta-analysis.

References

  1. Andersson, L., Wilk, J., Todd, M. C., Hughes, D. A., Earle, A., Kniveton, D., Layberry, R. and Savenije, H. H. G. (2006) “Impact of climate change and development scenarios on flow patterns in the Okavango River”, Journal of Hydrology, Vol. 331, No. 1-2, pp. 43-57. ISSN 00221694.
  2. Badjana, H. M., Zander, F., Kralisch, S., Helmschrot, J. and Flügel, W. (2015) “An Information System for Integrated Land and Water Resources Management in the Kara River Basin (Togo and Benin)”, International Journal of Database Management Systems (IJDMS), Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 15–27, ISSN 0975-5705.
  3. Bruch, C. (2003) International waters in Southern Africa, In M. Nakayama (Ed.), International waters in Southern Africa, United Nations University Press. p. 317, ISBN 92-808-1077-4.
  4. Crowley, D. N., Curry, E. and Breslin, J. G. (2013) “Closing the loop - From citizen sensing to citizen actuation”, Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Digital Ecosystems and Technologies, pp. 108–113. ISSN 21504938.
  5. Davis, F. D. (1989) “Perceived Usefulness, Perceived Ease of Use, and User Acceptance of Information Technology”, MIS Quarterly, Vol. 13, No. 3, pp. 319-340. ISSN 0276-7783. DOI 10.2307/249008.
  6. Dodson, L. L., Sterling, S. and Bennett, J. K. (2012) Considering failure: eight years of ITID research. In Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development, ACM. ISBN 978-1-4503-1907. DOI 10.1145/2160673.2160681.
  7. Heeks, R. (2003) Most e-Government-for-development projects fail: How can risks be reduced? iGovernment Working Paper Series, Institute for Development Policy and Management, University of Manchester. [Online] Available: unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/NISPAcee/ UNPAN015488.pdf [Accessed: 12 November 2015].
  8. Hermans, L., Renault, D., Emerton, L., Perrot-Maître, D., Nguyen-Khoa, S. and Smith, L. (2006) Stakeholder-oriented valuation to support water resources management processes: Confronting concepts with local practice, UN-FAO. ISBN 92-5-105477-0.
  9. Hjørland, B. and Christensen, S. F. (2002) “Work tasks and socio-cognitive relevance: a specific example”, Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Vol. 53, No. 11, pp. 960-965. ISSN 1532-2890. DOI 10.1002/asi.10132.
  10. Hughes, D. A., Andersson, L., Wilk, J. and Savenije, H. H. G. (2006) “Regional calibration of the Pitman model for the Okavango River”, Journal of Hydrology, Vol. 331, No. 1-2, pp. 30-42. ISSN 00221694.
  11. Jansky, L., Sklarew, D. M. and Uitto, J. I. (Eds) (2005) Enhancing public participation and governance in water resources management: Conventional Approaches and Information Technology, UN University Press. ISBN 9280811207.
  12. Kgathi, D. L., Kniveton, D., Ringrose, S., Turton, A. R., Vanderpost, C. H. M., Lundqvist, J. and Seely, M. (2006) “The Okavango; a river supporting its people, environment and economic development”, Journal of Hydrology, Vol. 331, No. 1-2, pp. 3-17. ISSN 00221694.
  13. Kontio, J., Caldiera, G. and Basili, V. R. (1996) “Defining Factors, Goals and Criteria for Reusable Component Evaluation”, Proceedings of CASCON ’96 Conference, November 12–14, Toronto, Canada. [Online] Available: https://www.cs.umd.edu/~basili/publications/proceedings/P73.pdf [Accessed: 8 September 2015].
  14. Kralisch, S., Zander, F. and Flügel, W. (2013) “OBIS - a Data and Information Management System for the Okavango Basin”, Biodiversity and Ecology, Vol. 5, p. 214–220. ISSN 1613-9801.
  15. Macintosh, A. and Whyte, A. (2008) “Towards an evaluation framework for eParticipation”, Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy, Vol. 2, No. 1, p. 16–30. ISSN 1750-6166.
  16. Miller, J. and Khera, O. (2010) “Digital Library adoption and the technology acceptance model: A cross-country analysis”, The Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries, Vol. 40, No. 6, p. 1–19. ISSN 1681-4835.
  17. Nakayama, M. (2003) Introduction: Opportunities and risks. In M. Nakayama (Ed.), International Waters in Southern Africa, United Nations University Press, p. 317. ISBN 92-808-1077-4. DOI 10.1007/978-3-662-05193-1_1.
  18. Pereira, Â. G., Rinaudo, J., Jeffrey, P., Blasques, J., Quintana, S. C., Courtois, N., Funtowicz, S. and Petit, V. (2003) “ICT Tools to Support Public Participation in Water Resources Governance & Planning: Experiences from the Design and Testing of a Multi-media platform”, Journal of Environmental Assessment Policy and Management, Vol. 5, No. 3, p. 395-420. ISSN 1464-3332.
  19. Salewicz, K. A. (2003) Building the bridge between decision-support tools and decision-making, In M. Nakayama (Ed.), International Waters in Southern Africa. Tokyo: UN University Press, p. 317. ISBN 92-808-1077-4.
  20. van Koppen, B., Namara, R., Safilios-Rothschild, C. (2005) Reducing Poverty through Investments in Agricultural Water Management: Poverty and Gender Issues and Synthesis of Sub-Saharan Africa Case Study Reports. IWMI Working paper No. 101, 2005, p. 66. ISBN 92-909-0615-4.
  21. Vickery, B. C.(1959) The structure of information retrieval systems. Proceedings of the International Conference on Scientific Information, p. 1275–1290. pp. 1662. ISBN 0-309-57421-8. DOI 10.17226/10866.
  22. Vitolo, C., El-Khatib, Y., Reusser, D., Macleod, C. J. a., & Buytaert, W. (2015) "Web Technologies for Environmental Big Data". Environmental Modelling & Software, Vol. 63, p. 185-198. ISSN 1364-8152. DOI 10.1016/j.envsoft.2014.10.007.
  23. Wholey, J. S., Hatry, H. P., Newcomer, K. E. (Eds) (2010) Handbook of practical program evaluation, 3nd ed., pp. 700. Wiley & Sons Publications. ISBN 978-0-470-52247-9.
  24. Zarli, A., Rezgui, Y., Belziti, D., and Duce, E. (2014) Water Analytics and Intelligent Sensing for Demand Optimised Management: The WISDOM Vision and Approach. In 16th Conference on Water Distribution System Analysis, WDSA, pp. 1050-1057. Elsevier Inc. ISBN 978-1-63439-782-7.

Full paper

  Full paper (.pdf, 1.34 MB).