Water scarcity in SA is not exclusively attributable to physical drivers
|Published
Burn the Ministerial Handbook.
No more perks, such as uncapped water and energy bills to be paid on behalf of Ministers.
Poor people can not pay for rich people.
Johannesburg’s newly elected mayor Dada Moreri calls for/declares a water revolution. He advises that each home should have a JoJo water tank to harvest rainwater.
It seems that he does not quite understand the problem. First, it was Cape Town, then Gqeberha, and now it is the Johannesburg Metro that is approaching Day Zero for water supply. Our Constitution obliges both national and provincial governments to support municipalities in their service delivery functions.
The national Department of Water handles bulk water supply across the country.
But the department has been failing in many of its functions in recent years. It has not kept up with infrastructure maintenance or new supply; however, there is light in the tunnel.
There are a few interim measures that the City of Johannesburg can take:
The City of Johannesburg needs to throttle back the amount of water getting drawn off the system: patching up leaks in the water grid, reducing pressure in the pipes, getting the public to voluntarily reduce their water use, and installing devices that shut the water off in the homes of people who were exceeding restrictions.
Water management devices are a way for a city to micro-manage a household’s water use: the gadget is attached to the water meter and is set to allow a pre-determined quota of water through each day.
The city can also install pressure management zones.
South Africa is considered a water-scarce country.
“Water scarcity” refers to the volumetric abundance, or non-abundance, of water supply. It is expressed as the ratio of human water consumption to available water supply in each area. It is a physical reality that can be measured consistently across regions and over time. Water scarcity is driven by two factors (i) physical (physical or absolute water scarcity) or economic (economic water scarcity). South Africa is a water-scarce country and ranks as one of the 30 driest countries in the world, with an average rainfall of about 40% less than the annual world average rainfall.
South Africa has an average annual rainfall of less than 500 mm, while that of the world is about 850 mm.
Economic water scarcity
Economic water scarcity is by far the most disturbing form of water scarcity because it is almost entirely a lack of compassion and good governance that allows the condition to persist.
Economic water scarcity exists when a population does not have the necessary monetary means to utilise an adequate source of water.
Economic water scarcity or social water scarcity (second-order water scarcity) is caused by a lack of investment in water or a lack of human capacity to satisfy the demand for water, even in places where water is abundant. It is induced by political power, policies, and/or socio-economic relations.
Symptoms include inadequate infrastructure development.
In 2006, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) human development report concluded that water scarcity is not solely rooted in the physical availability of water but in unbalanced power relations, poverty, and inequality. As a result, the FAO emphatically posits water scarcity as an issue of poverty, where unclean water and lack of sanitation have been observed to be the destiny of poor people world-wide.
The observed water scarcity in South Africa is not exclusively attributable to physical drivers.
It also has economic causes. Economic water scarcity is caused by a lack of investment in infrastructure or technology to draw water from rivers, aquifers, or other water sources.
Like all municipalities across the country, Cities have a tiered block-tariff billing system: the cost of the first basic units of water is relatively low, but the more a household uses, the steeper the price increase becomes. The income from the higher-priced water subsidises water delivery to lower-paying households and households registered with the city as ‘indigent’ who get a free basic quota and brings free water to the standpipes in informal settlements, which service around 180 000 households.
This tariffing system means that City managers see the water that comes down the pipeline when someone opens a tap as a ‘product’ and a source of income. Higher sales mean the city can keep topping up the coffers. Why would a city with this ‘revenue model’ want to sell less of this ‘commodity’ or encourage citizens to throttle back on their use? This model for paying for service delivery remains one of the biggest challenges to creating more sustainable usage of resources in South Africa’s cities.
The Special Investigating Unit is currently investigating a wide variety of corruption cases involving water.
The first phase of the multi-phase Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP) entailed the construction of the Katse Dam, Mohale Dams, Matsoku Diversion Tunnel, and the Muela hydropower station. Lesotho benefits from a sustainable, independent energy supply for Lesotho that will meet the country’s electricity requirements and royalty revenue from the project, while South Africa benefits from the security of supply of high-quality water that is transferred into the Vaal River system for domestic and industrial use in the Gauteng province.
Phase II of the LHWP will be implemented in terms of two distinct components: a water delivery system to augment the delivery of water to South Africa and a hydro-power generation system, which will increase the current electricity generation capacity in Lesotho.
The Phase II project, therefore, entails the construction of the Polihali Dam, a transfer tunnel from Polihali Dam to Katse reservoir, as well as advanced infrastructure and environmental and social development programs in Lesotho. Phase II will increase the current supply rate of 780-million cubic metres a year incrementally to more than 1,270 million cubic metres a year. South Africa receives 24.6m³ of water per second from the LHWP. A cumulative total of 45.5m³ per second will flow because of the expansion.
The future picture for Gauteng Water looks brighter than that of its electricity supply.
Corrie Kruger is an independent analyst.
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