Water crisis: South Africa facing health risks and environmental ruin

South Africa’s water challenge has many factors at play which require proactive and informed management for the country to get water security, according to Prof Anja du Plessis, a water expert at the University of South Africa (Unisa).

Various parts of the country, particularly in Gauteng, have for the last couple of days been experiencing water supply issues due to reservoirs which had run empty, largely due to the rolling power cuts.

There was a slight reprieve on the power front when Eskom suspended load shedding over the weekend. However, stage 2 load shedding is expected to be implemented from Monday until Wednesday, at 4pm until midnight.

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Due to load shedding and the scorching weather, several municipalities in Gauteng, including the City of Johannesburg, City of Tshwane and Emfuleni local municipality, were forced to implement water restrictions.

Water crisis

Speaking to The Citizen on Monday, Du Plessis said the current state of the country’s freshwater resources is concerning, with some areas already in a state of crisis.

Du Plessis said the primary driving forces behind the crisis include persistent unsustainable water demands, poor water usage behaviour, unequal distribution, commercial water losses and high levels of pollution.

“Prolonged droughts and more frequent floods, unreliable water service provision and delivery, dilapidated state of water infrastructure, entrenched misappropriation of funds and lack of skills and capacity affecting all levels of government are also contributing factors to our water challenges,” she said.

The state of the country’s rivers and dams are no better.

“Long term data trends also show that South Africa’s rivers and dams have significantly deteriorated over the past two to three decades and in some instances, posing serious human health risks and degradation of the environment.”

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She said the growing population, increased urbanisation, inadequate maintenance of wastewater treatment works as well as long term consequences of pollution issues such as acid mine drainage, have made the situation worse.

Du Plessis said the country’s water problems are likely to eclipse the electricity crisis if current trends continue. She said legislation, policies and strategies are needed to manage the country’s water resources.

“However, the lack of sufficient capacity, appropriate skillset as well as overall unaccountability significantly influences the actual implementation and enforcement thereof,” Du Plessis said.

Infrastructure

Water infrastructure, according to Du Plessis, is a major concern as most of it was built four decades ago and has seen minimal maintenance since then.

“A good example of the effects of non-maintained water infrastructure is currently playing out in Gauteng, specifically in the City of Johannesburg, City of Tshwane and City of Ekurhuleni where stage 2 water restrictions had to be implemented due to collapsing water infrastructure such as burst pipes and major leaks in combination with reservoirs not being able to recover due to high water demand and blackouts,” Du Plessis said.

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Many parts of the country have in recent summer seasons been receiving abundant rainfall and with the forecast another above-normal rainfall season, the dam levels are expected to be full or near full.

But Du Plessis said full dams do not guarantee reliable supply as the infrastructure needs to be functioning to provide residents with water.

“Despite the Integrated Vaal River System, Gauteng’s primary water source, overall storage capacity being 93%, large areas in these municipalities have experienced unreliable and, in some cases, no water supply at all in the past week,” Du Plessis said.

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Meanwhile, spokesperson for the Department of Water and Sanitation Sputnik Ratau denied that there is a crisis. He said they do not necessarily have a shortage of a source of water but rather a difficulty of available reticulation.

Ratau said it is mainly the rural provinces, such as KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), Eastern Cape, Limpopo and North West, including parts of Mpumalanga, that are worse affected.

Will water situation eclipse electricity crisis?

“We do not envisage as much but we have to keep our sights on the ball,” he said.

On the dam levels, Ratau said they are seeing a decline week-on-week, as expected for this time of year, coming from the dry winter season and before the next summer rains.

Last week, the national average was down slightly from 89.7% to 89.5%.

Ratau said load shedding continues to be a great concern for the whole water sector.

“The impact is mainly on the capacity to pump, then the treatment and ultimately of course the distribution.

“We have not seen major damage to the water infrastructure, but we cannot ignore the possibility of that happening,” Ratau added.

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