Contested Understanding of River Health from Communities’ Perspective in the Lower Komati River in South Africa

This chapter explores the contested understanding and conceptualisation of river health by local communities in the Lower Komati, South Africa. Local community members accounted for ecological and physical river health changes, which are embedded on their use and relationship with the river, which challenges current discourses that only associate river health to ecological traits. This conceptualisation reveal the formation of local ecological knowledge on river health based on experience, observation and sharing of knowledge between community members. Discussion with local communities also led to reflections on contextual views of how past politics and history of the area influenced current health of the Lower Komati River. Their conceptualisation of river health from a social, historical and geographical perspective shows how the areas’ activities and processes contributed to the current river health in the Lower Komati. The communities’ relationship with the river shaped their capacity to use and value the river. The chapter concludes that tracing the area’s politics, human activities, physical observation and relationships between the river and local communities is important for locally congruent indicators that better explain river health compared to more common ecological-only discourse.