Blog Post #2- Water Use in South Africa

Water Use in South Africa

Introduction: 

One of the case studies that really intrigued my interest in water use in the region was the recent crisis faced by Cape Town, South Africa. The news was filled with articles depicting how residents were conserving water from making composting toilets to limiting their shower times to under a minute. (Mahr 2018). Water use has been at its lowest (see figure 1) with the government limiting individual use to a mere 13 gallons a day. (Baker 2019). Plans for when the city ran out of water coined "Day Zero" reached news headlines as government officials struggled to come up with measures to avoid the worst case scenario. The dreaded "Day Zero" predicted to occur in March of 2018 was luckily avoided due to these extreme measures (Lille 2017) but was the extreme rationing of water in the city in line with South Africa's commitment to giving its citizens clean water? Although the plan for Day Zero fell in line with the World Health Organization's recommendation for water provision, the reality of forcing citizens to collect water at these municipal collection points was extreme. (Lille 2017). South Africa's 1997 Water Services Act stipulates (WWF 2016) that citizens have the right to water, so who is responsible for the city's inability to provide its citizens with this right? Was this crisis caused by misuse by citizens or perhaps a gross mismanagement by Cape Town officials? 

Figure 1: WWF 2016

South African Geography and Political Landscape:

In order to understand how Cape Town fell into this water crisis, it is important to analyze how South Africa's geological features played a role. South Africa lies within the Orange River Basin and is geologically defined by large plateaus in the center of the country with coastal regions on most of its borders. The northwestern region is defined by its shared desert climate with southern Namibia, but also has subtropical regions in the northeastern region towards Mozambique. (Gov.ZA 2019). The coastal regions, where Cape Town is located, has historically had heavy rainfall due to plateaus such as Table Mountain trapping coastal breezes. (Welch 2018). However, although historically rainfall has been plenty, within the last decade, rainfall has been less consistent and less frequent. (Ziervogel 2019). As shown in Figure 2, although South Africa's citizens have a lot of access to clean drinking water, the available water is quite low, especially in comparison to nearby Namibia. 

South Africa has some of the best infrastructure in Sub-Saharan Africa and is one of the most rapid growing economies in the region. Its inequality in water distribution improved greatly, catalyzed by the end of apartheid in 1994. (The Water Project). The end of apartheid lifted many of the sanctions placed on South Africa and brought more money into their economy. Although there are still issues with sanitation, access to water and water management has become an increasing priority and there is a very established connection between different government agencies to address the continuing and evolving issue with regard to water scarcity and access. Figure 3 illustrates South Africa's water resources and factors such as highly seasonal rainfall, very diverse landscapes, and increasing water demand that the government must take into account when managing water.

Figure 3: WWF 2016

Water Management:

In the case of the Cape Town water crisis, water management was split between multiple levels of jurisdiction. On the municipal level, the Cape Town Water Resilience Task Team appointed by the mayor oversaw local water distribution. Historically the city's Department of Water and Sanitation managed this, however, in the last decade, the department's lack of specialization and technical knowledge and ability made room for the WRTT to take over management. (Ziervogel 2019). Above the municipal level are two major Catchment Management Agencies (CMAs) with varying regional operation levels. The CMAs run under the national Department of Water and Sanitation. However, although many areas have well established and set up boards, there is an inequality in structure across poorer more rural areas of South Africa. Figure 4 depicts these disparities. This lack of consistency negatively affects these communities, but there is currently no system to help these regions' CMA boards become on par with their metropolitan neighbors. Trouble came to Cape Town because of the lack of foresight by multiple management agencies. There was little consideration given to climate change and the growing population which drove water demand much higher. Limited data also contributed to the mismanagement, however, lack of long term planning is what really hurt the city. (Parks et al 2019). 

Figure 4: WWF 2016

Water Technologies:

The most used water catchment technology South Africa currently has are dams. The Department of Water and Sanitation currently manages 305 dams but there are around 4,700 registered with the Dam Safety Office. (WWF 2016). These above ground dams have high water capacity, however, issues of sanitation and loss of water due to high evaporation rates (The Water Project) do not make them the most efficient technology the country could be using. Perhaps subsurface dams could be a better technology the country could utilize. Subsurface dams are a cleaner alternative that also eliminates the loss of water due to evaporation. Another technology South Africa uses are a series of Interbasin Transfer Schemes. The basic use of this is to transport water from basins with excess to basins with more need and less supply. (WWF 2016).  This is to compensate for large regions of the country that are arable but do not have adequate water supply. The exploration of different technologies and restoration to current ones are a direction that the government of South Africa should consider rather than just reactionary responses to crises such as Cape Town.