While South Africa celebrates progress in reducing electricity outages, a looming water crisis threatens the 60 million population. With rainfall levels significantly below global averages and infrastructure disparities exacerbating the issue, the country is facing a serious water shortage. Experts warn that the situation is reaching a tipping point and requires urgent action to mitigate the impacts on communities and the economy.
Johannesburg, South Africa’s biggest city and its financial metropolis, has experienced an unprecedented water shortage this year. While the city is said to have plenty of water sources, its poor infrastructure and management have triggered a failure in the water system that has forced half of its over 5.5 million residents to queue for water for hours.
The news from Johannesburg comes two years after Cape Town, the country’s legislative capital, went through a similar water crisis. Durban, South Africa’s third largest city, has also witnessed a water shortage in recent years.
“On the way to a disaster”
The reasons behind the water scarcity are myriad and encompass both supply and demand issues.
From a rainfall perspective, South Africa has recorded close to 50% less average annual rainfall (450mm) than the rest of the world (860mm), placing it in the medium-high water stress country category.
Dr Jo Barnes, Senior Lecturer Emeritus in the Division of Health Systems and Public Health in the Department of Global Health at Stellenbosch University, notes that the overall situation regarding water supplies in South Africa is at “a tipping point and on the way to a disaster”.
The government’s own National Water and Sanitation Masterplan clearly states that South Africa is facing a water crisis “caused by insufficient water infrastructure maintenance and investment, recurrent droughts driven by climatic variation, inequities in access to water and sanitation, deteriorating water quality, and a lack of skilled water engineers”.
Water expert Pierre Lundberg has identified three core supply-side factors that are contributing to the water crisis.
“The water infrastructure in South Africa is overloaded, not well maintained and there is a lack of accountability from the people who are supposed to be maintaining it,” he explained.
These factors, he added, have led to unplanned and planned water outages. Furthermore, when the water supply does return, there is a lot of sediment and too much chlorine in the system which leads to problems with the quality of the water. The crisis is therefore two-fold with both the delivery and the quality of the water causing issues.
Water infrastructure fails to cope with increasing demand
On the demand side, the most recent government data supports the view that the country’s water infrastructure cannot cope. The 2022 census revealed that there are now 17.8 million households in South Africa, almost double that in 1996.
Of these, the percentage of households with access to piped or tap water in their dwellings stood at 87%, according to the 2023 General Household Survey, while access to flush toilets and pit toilets with ventilation pipes was recorded at 83.3% in 2023.
According to the National Water and Sanitation Masterplan, if demand continues to grow at the same pace, then the deficit between water supply and demand could be between 2.7 and 3.8 billion m3/a by 2030, a gap of about 17% of the available surface and groundwater.
What can be done
In 2018, the Institute for Security Studies and the Water Research Commission released the results of the national water forecast for South Africa up to 2035.
According to lead author Zach Donnenfeld, water scarcity is most severe in the Western Cape, but other parts of the country are overexploiting their renewable water resources too.
“This is a national problem with severe consequences for human development and economic growth,” he said.
The report notes that it would be possible to restore stability to South Africa’s water system but “it will take significant financial investment and political will”.
On the supply side, the study suggests that increasing the treatment of municipal wastewater and better utilising groundwater, particularly in the agricultural sector, will improve water supplies.
“By reducing per capita consumption in the municipal sector, increasing the amount of wastewater that is treated and returned to the system, using more groundwater in agriculture, and moving away from coal-fired power plants, the country can bring its water sector back into balance”.
On the demand side, interventions include incentivising South Africans to conserve water, including tiered pricing models, new building codes and the use of water efficient appliances.
“Our research shows that available technologies can be used to mitigate water scarcity,” Donnenfeld added.
