Risk management of the rehabilitation of a communal facility on dolomitic land: a South African case study

The importance of risk management has grown to such an extent in the past few years that the critical risk factors have managed to gain the attention of the construction industry. Projects on dolomitic land carry many risk factors and the completion of such projects requires proper management and due diligence. The occurrence of sinkhole formation has resulted in the closure of some facilities meant to cater for communities, such as the Katlehong Swimming Pool, located in Katlehong, Gauteng, which is investigated as a case study in the research for this paper. Before establishing this community facility, there was no evidence of any dolomite instability investigations undertaken at this site before 2002. The South African government and the local municipalities have invested billions of rand in such facilities that have failed. Furthermore, with the present economic situation in the country, financial resources to invest in these deserted facilities are limited. Therefore, this paper aims to contribute towards a risk-management plan to authorize the safe use of the facility by identifying and assessing the risks associated with dolomitic land in the case study municipality. The risk-management plan, referred to in this study, allows the rehabilitation of the communal pool site. However, it is crucial that all remedial measures provided are undertaken with special caution. This is especially important in the context of the socio-technical environment of this case study research where the community considered is extremely vulnerable. This risk management approach and results may also be applied to disaster management for other relevant environmental issues such as extreme flooding and mudslide risks that are for example prevalent in regions such as Kwazulu Natal in South Africa, Brazil and even India. These cases and comparisons may be considered as topics for future research.