South Africa’s future growth is going to be constrained as much by water, as the availability of electricity. Sharon Davis tells us more.

The importance of water for economic growth in South Africa, a largely semi-arid country, was recognised as early as the 1960s when the government started an extensive dam-building programme on our major rivers to ensure a regular water supply for both agriculture and industry.

Despite these efforts, and in some cases because of them, scientists and researchers have been warning of a looming water shortage for the past 30 years, and continue to do so.

Increased economic activity, more intensive land-use practices and a growth in population have increased the demand for water while simultaneously degrading the resource; adding to pollutant pressure while removing natural storage and filtration systems like wetlands.

Reports dating back to 1993 clearly state that “South Africa’s available freshwater resources are almost fully utilised and under stress” and that water use was not sustainable at projected growth rates.

According to more recent reports by the Consulting Engineers South Africa (CESA) and the World Wildlife Fund, South Africa’s water demand will exceed supply by 1.7% in 2025, and metropolitan areas like the Witwatersrand are expected to experience shortages as early as 2013.

But the situation could in fact be worse, says Anthony Turton, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) scientist who was suspended late in 2008 over a key-note presentation he was to give warning of a crisis in the water sector which he, and his co-authors, felt could fan social unrest.

Demand almost exceeds supply

Research conducted in 2004 to guide the national water resource strategy showed that we were already using 98% of all our water resources.

But Turton says this was based on estimates of water resources in 1998.

The outspoken scientist, now running a private consultancy, says that recent research indicates a strong possibility that the water resource levels as estimated in 1998 is an overestimate of our water resources today.

The Department of Water Affairs (DWAF) has suffered from a lack of qualified staff for a long period, which has resulted in poor data, and outdated management of dams, says Turton.

Although hard to prove without measuring each dam in South Africa, Turton believes that the storage of dams has dropped as a result of siltation raising the floor level of the dams and reducing their capacity.

This increases the probability of the crisis arriving sooner than predicted, particularly as South Africa has already built as many dams as our river systems can accommodate, ruling out more dams as an option.

It gets worse…

Unfortunately the supply crisis is exacerbated by compounding factors which include: rapidly deteriorating infrastructure, a shortage of skilled staff and a worrying decline in the quality of water.

In February the DWAF told an ad hoc parliamentary committee on service delivery that less than 11% South Africa’s 283 municipalities have properly functioning water services and that there is an acute risk of disease.

Early statements said that only 54% of the country’s 294 dams owned and managed by DWAF comply with modern safety standards, and in 2008 half of the municipal water supplies surveyed in the Western Cape had high levels of E.coli bacteria.

The connection is easy to see. As the quality of water sources deteriorate, it becomes more complex and more expensive to purify water and make it safe for drinking.

“Water services, countrywide, are in a crisis situation and should for the foreseeable future be made into a comprehensive, national project until skilled people are put in place who can successfully manage water services on a municipal level,” says Andre Venter, spokesperson for union, the United Association of South Africa (UASA).

CESA confirms that water quality is deteriorating and says that South Africa needs to build, maintain and upgrade infrastructure and to improve staff skills to prevent serious water shortages by 2019.

CESA president Zulch Lotter says there is a potential negative impact on health and our natural environment and that the future of water sports, like the Dusi canoe marathon, are under threat.
Turton says that the problem is also compounded by water resources being contaminated by toxic mine spoils.

As an increasing amount of water in South Africa is not only unsafe for drinking and bathing, but is also unsafe to use for irrigation or cattle and dairy farming, Turton warns that an increase in dam temperatures as a result of global warming is likely to result in an increase in blue-green algae that produces additional health risks.

The solutions

Adding new dams to an already stressed water resource system is not the answer. Desalination is regarded as too expensive, and diverting water resources from neighbouring countries is a political minefield requiring delicate negotiation and subject to sabotage and the whim of the ruling parties.

So what is the solution to South Africa’s water crisis?

Apart from a national strategy and the necessary political will to address skills and infrastructure issues identified by UASA, Turton suggests a relook at the hydrological foundation on which our economy was built.

He says that the flat and wide structure of most of South Africa’s dams provides a large surface area for evaporation.  According to data from the United Nations Environment Programme Africa loses 80% of its rainfall to evaporation and plant use. Other research work shows that in the two most important river basins in South Africa – the Orange and the Limpopo – only 5% of the rainfall becomes water in the rivers. Based on this Turton and other scientists say we need to come up with technologies, like underground storage, that prevent evaporation loses.

While Turton says that: “Unless we rethink water and energy, South Africa will be in such dire straits that it will not recover,” he is also upbeat about avoiding this “crash and burn scenario”.

He says we need to stop viewing water as “stock”, or a resource that is 100% used up, when used once, and investigate ways to recycle and re-use water.

The maths is simple. The CSIR has forecast that South Africa will need 66-billion cubic metres of water by 2035, almost double the amount of water available. But, if we are able to re-use water 0.8 times, we already have enough water.

Turton also urges us to move away from a blaming mindset and look for new solutions. For example, Turton says that the mining sector has created a hole under Johannesburg that is five times larger than Lake Kariba, and perfect for the underground storage of water, except for the fact that it is currently toxic.

According to Turton the technology already exists to remove the toxicity and suggests that instead of trying to apportion blame we work together to turn this into a viable water resource.

It is solution noted as worth investigation by other scientists as well, and Turton is right about one thing: we’re going to have to think creatively, and fast, to solve the problem without it affecting economic growth, job creation, health and quality of life of all South Africans.

This article was written by Shaz for the Wits Business School Journal in Feb 2010