REVIEW article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Leadership in Education
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1621476
WATER SECURITY AND LIVELIHOODS IN THE ARID ZONES OF SOUTH AFRICA: A HUMAN GEOGRAPHY APPROACH TO RURAL EDUCATION AND CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT
Provisionally accepted- 1Department of Human Science Teaching, Sol Plaatje University, Kimberley, South Africa
- 2Sol Plaatje, Kimberley, South Africa
- 3Sol Plaatje, Kim, South Africa
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Water insecurity poses a critical threat to livelihoods in South Africa's arid zones, where rural communities are increasingly vulnerable to hydrological stress, ecological degradation, and socio-economic marginalization. Despite the urgency of the issue, scholarly engagement that bridges water security with rural development education through a human geography perspective remains underexplored. Also, inadequate integration of local ecological knowledge and community-driven water management strategies into formal education systems undermines both resilience and innovation in rural development initiatives. This study conducts a systematic literature review of policy papers and peer-reviewed articles drawn from Scopus and Web of Science databases to investigate the nexus between water security and livelihoods in South Africa's arid regions, with a focus on its pedagogical relevance to rural education development. Guided by the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework (SLF), the findings reveal that water scarcity is a deeply social and spatial condition shaped by historical land dispossession, poor infrastructure, climate variability, and fragmented governance, hence, the urgent need to recalibrate rural education curricula to incorporate interdisciplinary, context-specific knowledge on water governance, environmental justice, and sustainable livelihoods. This study recommends a transformative educational model that embeds water security into human geography, environmental science, and rural development programs, which prioritizes experiential learning, participatory research, and transdisciplinary partnerships to foster water-literate graduates and empowered rural citizens.Hence, this study reimagines education as a tool for adaptation, equity, and charts a new course for integrating water justice into the heart of rural transformation in South Africa's arid landscapes.
Keywords: Arid regions, water security, Sustainable livelihoods, Rural education, human geography
Received: 14 May 2025; Accepted: 16 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 OLATOYE and Fru. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Dr Tolulope Ayodeji OLATOYE, Department of Human Science Teaching, Sol Plaatje University, Kimberley, South Africa
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