Water crisis: The need for rainwater harvesting

As South Africa continues to face water shortages and other related challenges, rainwater harvesting expert Dr Wilma van Staden has urged small-scale farmers and communities to conserve rainwater to avert food shortages.

Currently, South Africa is facing a serious water crisis attributed to various issues, including deteriorating dam levels and ageing infrastructure.

In March this year, parliament’s portfolio committee on water and sanitation called on the government to address the scarcity of water by enhancing the maintenance of water systems infrastructure to ensure water continues to be provided to citizens.

Rainwater harvesting becoming critical

Van Staden, a senior member of Amanzi for Food programme, said yesterday: “Rainwater harvesting is becoming critical due to the growing challenges of water scarcity and climate change and erratic weather patterns.

“Harvesting rainwater can help farmers and communities to secure enough water for irrigation, home use and also use it for other house chores.”

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She said this will improve water availability for crops, which ensures food security.

“In short, widespread adoption of this practice will help to reduce pressure on municipal water supply,” Van Staden said.

“We are not only looking at water harvesting but also water holding and storing for specific crops. After training the interested people, offer them tools that are needed when they conduct rainwater harvesting.

Water holding and storing for specific crops

“We are in a critical situation as a country and cannot afford to lose a single drop of rainwater. The gospel that we always preach is that whenever there is rain, water should be conserved.”

Van Staden said since the project was launched a decade ago by the environmental learning research centre at Rhodes University and funded by the Water Research Commission, it had educated many farmers and communities across the country.

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She said after realising that other people were failing to attend the in-person training, the organisation decided to offer the free online training session.

“We also provide farmers, agricultural trainers and communities with practical tools and resources to capture, store and use rainwater effectively,” she said.

“The long-term benefit of this is that during this time of climate change and water scarcity, people will continue to teach future generations about water harvesting.”

Teaching future generations

Provinces reportedly facing severe water shortage include the Western Cape, Gauteng, Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal .

Wisane Mavasa, spokesperson for water and sanitation, recently said the government was working around the clock to address the issue of water shortages throughout the country.

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“To ensure water security, the government is focusing on investing in additional national water resource infrastructure, building awareness of the need to use water sparingly and improving municipal water and sanitation services,” said Mavasa.

“In the past, many of the department of water and sanitation projects have been subjected to unacceptable delays.”

Unacceptable delays

However, in recent years the department has made good progress in unblocking and accelerating the delayed projects.

There are 14 major national water resource infrastructure projects to a value of more than R100 billion.