No water for SA by 2025, says French scientist
JOBURG – French professor paints a grim picture of the water future of this country and region.
A French scientist has painted a grim picture of water scarcity in South Africa and the entire southern African region, saying the current situation in the Western Cape is just the tip of the iceberg.
Prof. Gilles Boeuf of College de France and professor at the Universite Pierre et Marie Curie delivered a lecture, Biodiversity under stress due to climate change, at the Sci-Bono Discovery Centre in Newtown, Johannesburg on 11 April.
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Boeuf, who is also a scientific adviser to the French ministry of environment, energy and sea, said South Africa and the entire southern African region would be without water in the next seven years.
“By 2025, South Africa and the region of southern Africa, which includes countries such as Botswana, Namibia, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, will be completely dry by then,” he said.
“There will be no water at all, and what is happening in the Western Cape region of South Africa is just the tip of the iceberg and something more drastic and wider is still yet to come.”
Boeuf added that the water scarcity in the Western Cape was due to climate change which people needed to address and take steps to reverse or the inevitable would happen and that was the desertification of the whole region of southern Africa.
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He said humans needed to live in peace with nature and ensure they secured the biodiversity of the earth to escape the water phenomenon that is currently taking shape. “These are warning signs and we need to heed them and take practical steps to ensure we preserve biodiversity as it is our only hope of survival.” Professor Boeuf said.
For those countries with coastlines, Boeuf said their survival could lie in the desalination of seawater, Though expensive it could be their only source of water in the future.
