Kanyerere, ThokozaniDzwairo, Rimuka BloodlessSingh, Sudhir KumarBanda, Vincent Santos Dzulani Banda2026-11-122026-11-122026https://hdl.handle.net/10566/25784Climate change continues to pose a significant threat to future water resources globally, leading to various challenges such as water shortages, flooding, environmental degradation, and social conflicts. Increasing temperatures and unpredictability in precipitation from climate change often results in the disruption of the natural hydrological balance, driven by increased evaporation amounts and changes in streamflow regimes. As the global hydrologic cycle gets impacted by climate change, a clear repercussion is the shift in the distribution and availability of freshwater resources across the globe. In the midst of climate change, concern over water availability is heightened by the combination of population increase and fast urbanization. The present research addresses the problem and limitations of conventional water resources management approaches that treat the components of the water resource system as static,assume linear relationships, often focus on short-term goals, and fail to indicate the anticipated implications of policies, socioeconomic and technological advancements. This study argues that a lack of understanding of the interconnections and dynamic nature of complex water resource systems will result in the inability to develop sustainable water management solutions. It is further argued that applying a comprehensive approach to understanding the hydrological behaviour of river basins and shifting from a linear to systems thinking approach is vital to reducing climate change vulnerability and deducing effective measures to responding to changing climate and socioeconomic change circumstances. Therefore, the present study aimed at developing a system dynamic conceptual framework that can be used as a tool for making decision for sustainable water resource management in the Rietspruit basin, Gauteng Province in South Africa. The framework was employed to characterize the dynamics of the Rietspruit water resource system in order to support the water resource stakeholders to incorporate current state and potential future information in their evaluation, planning, and development of policies related to water resource management. By applying a system dynamics approach, the study had to first understand the behaviour of individual components affecting the water resource system, and then holistically analysing how these components interrelate and change the performance of the system in the future for devising better adaptation strategies. To contextualize the thesis, a synopsis of the modelling chain applied to investigate the response of the hydrologic system under changing climate was provided. It has been shown that climate change adaptation is intrinsically difficult to attain due to the dynamic earth system and lack of a comprehensive understanding of future climate and its associated uncertainties.enhydrological modellingRietspruit basinclimate changewater resource managementearth systemsThesis