The Department of Water Affairs & Forestry’s Water for Growth and Development Framework

The Department of Water Affairs and Forestry (DWAF) is developing a framework to guide actions and decisions that will ensure water security in terms of quantity and of quality to support South Africa’s requirements for economic growth and social development.

Sufficient supply of water is a requirement for the country to achieve its economic growth targets. The provision of potable water to every person in South Africa is also a fundamental developmental goal that needs to be facilitated by the department’s framework. These two goals must be achieved without compromising the ecological sustainability of water resources.

DWAF has also embarked upon rigorous water assessment studies referred to as “reconciliation strategies” in order to reconcile the supply and demand for water, particularly in water-scarce areas and areas experiencing relatively high levels of demand. These strategies aim to ensure the supply of water at adequate levels of assurance within the constraints of affordability, appropriate levels of service to users, and the protection of current and possible future water resources.

Thus far, six studies have been undertaken in the major urban centres and in July 2008, the department commissioned reconciliation strategies for every town in the country, due to be completed by 2011. Water scarcity has been identified in the major urban centres.

These major urban areas anchor the country’s economy, and the department has to invest heavily in the diversification of its water mix in order to prevent serious water shortages from adversely impacting on our economy. In addition to the traditional augmentation schemes, two major ways that water supplies can be augmented are the treatment of effluent and the desalination of seawater for productive use. A key principle behind assuring local water supplies is to limit the expense of transporting water by keeping supplies as close to the end-user as possible. DWAF also appreciates that while investments have been made in water schemes to assure water supply, there is a need to strengthen its focus on water conservation and water demand management, particularly since a very basic cost analysis shows a better return on investment from water-loss control and water-use efficiency measures than from additional supply-side interventions.

A major source of water loss is ageing infrastructure exacerbated by poor operations and maintenance at a municipal level. Analysis shows that this state of affairs is a multi-faceted problem including a lack of managerial and technical skills, and a lack of funding.

DWAF will strengthen its regulatory efforts to support this sector in a bid to reverse this dire situation; it becomes an even more crucial intervention when the pollution of water resources is due to faulty wastewater treatment works.

The phrase “water for development” refers to the critical role of water in poverty alleviation and people’s constitutional right to have reliable access to safe drinking water. DWAF is deeply concerned about the persistent backlogs in certain parts of the country. By 2005, it had already achieved the Millennium Development Goal of halving, “by the year 2015, the proportion of people who are unable to reach or to afford safe drinking water”.

The department is also very aware of anomalies in water distribution, such as communities that reside next to water sources but do not have access to these.

DWAF remains committed to ensuring that every person has access to a safe and reliable supply of drinking water, hence the framework for growth and development.

In terms of service backlogs, it is DWAF’s recommendation that resolving these backlogs is prioritised and addressed through a combination of short- and long-term interventions. Such interventions would include rainwater harvesting; the development and treatment of groundwater sources; and exploring the possibility of extending the reach of existing water supplies to additional communities. A balance is needed between bulk and small-scale infrastructure projects.

Where a community can be serviced by existing large-scale infrastructure, this should happen with immediate effect.

Where a community cannot be serviced by bulk infrastructure projects due to the cost of such an intervention (for example, pumping water to mountain-top communities at higher altitudes), then localised schemes must be planned and implemented.

Where large-scale infrastructure could solve local water scarcity, such as the De Hoop Dam, the necessary planning and resourcing must be undertaken and interim measures introduced to compensate for the long lead times.

DWAF will also prioritise schemes in areas with resource development potential but with high service backlogs. It will also support sector plans where water use for economic growth purposes can also support social development needs.

The department will particularly seek for and support interventions in the water sector that explicitly provide for the dual goals of growth and development, since one goal should not be realised at the expense of the other. The Water for Growth and Development Framework points to the relationship between water availability and the many forms of economic activity that depend on available water supply of specific levels of quality. DWAF’s position is that the country’s economic growth target cannot be achieved at the expense of the ecological sustainability of water resources or meeting people’s human needs. It wishes to respond to the needs of the different economic sectors and this is best achieved when water supply and the impact of use are factored in
during planning. Rather than being an add-on or afterthought, DWAF sees the need for water to be mainstreamed and placed at the nucleus of all planning decisions both in the public and private sector. For water to support economic growth without compromising primary needs or ecological sustainability requires adequate planning at a strategic level and in an integrated manner.

DWAF is very mindful of water-use behaviour that impacts negatively on water resource quantity and quality. It is currently exploring a potential mix of mechanisms to change this behaviour that includes regulatory instruments, market-based instruments, self-regulation, and awareness and education. The department plans to match mechanisms to offending behaviour in ways that appropriately mitigate its effects. DWAF is taking action to ensure it has reliable information to better support cross-sectoral planning and development initiatives in its decisions and trade-offs. The rolling out of the reconciliation strategies to various parts of the country will ensure that the department is able to anticipate and address future demand without any one aspect of water need (social, economic, or ecological) being compromised.

High level recommendations

Strengthening institutional capacity

While the reconciliation strategies identify potential water imbalances and interventions to be taken to avert water shortages, if DWAF lacks the capacity to oversee the implementation of these strategies and other aspects of its mandate, the consequence may be water shortages that result from poor management rather than a true deficiency of supply. The department has embarked on a process of institutional realignment to ensure that the catchment management agencies and, in their absence, the DWAF regional offices, are able to fulfil the role of implementing agents tasked with an array of water resource management functions.

Mainstreaming water

It is DWAF’s intention to ensure that water is placed at the heart of all planning decisions taking place in the country; to ensure that any decisions taken that rely on the steady supply of water, both in quantitative and qualitative terms, adequately factor in water availability.

Water can only support growth and development in the country without compromising the ecological sustainability of the resource if, and only if, water is at the nucleus of planning and decision-making, which includes, but is not limited to sectoral planning.

In an effort to elevate the status of water in terms of its value-add for growth and development, and accentuating the fact that this is a scarce and vulnerable resource, DWAF acknowledges the importance of strengthening its regulatory role, providing support and guidance to the plethora of stakeholders, affecting and influencing the sector.

Diversifying the water mix

Water availability is currently based on surface water (77%), return flows (14%) and groundwater (9%). Reconciliation studies undertaken in major urban centres have revealed that in addition to these sources, desalination and effluent reuse ought to be considered given the high risk of water shortages. Desalination refers to the treatment of saltwater, and effluent reuse refers to the treatment of urban and mining effluent. Both are a major source of water for coastal cities and treated effluent for major inland systems. In the long term, surface water will remain the predominant source of water, but DWAF expects a reduction on the dependence on this source accompanied by the increased use of groundwater and a significant increase in return flows through the treatment of urban and mining effluent.

The mix at the local level will be dependent on the most affordable and appropriate source depending on water use; for example, desalination of seawater for productive uses in coastal locations is considered highly feasible provided it is not transported inland – similarly, inland water resources should be retained for use inland.

Promoting water conservation and water demand management

The reality is that as a country, we can no longer afford water losses and therefore it is imperative that the focus on water conservation and water demand management must be strengthened, particularly as there is a greater return on investment through water-loss control and water-use efficiency. DWAF will prioritise the establishment of the water demand funding facilitation unit to provide support to municipalities in their effort to introduce water conservation and demand management.

Promoting and maintaining water quality

DWAF is extremely concerned about the status of the quality of the country’s water resources. It has undertaken to strengthen its compliance enforcement and monitoring as a way of clamping down on water-use behaviours that have a detrimental impact on our water resources.

It has also identified that a key challenge to sustained and healthy water supplies is the poor maintenance of waste water treatment works (WWTW) and DWAF will work closely with the Department of Provincial and Local Government (dplg) to restructure the Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG) so that it is used for the purposes of WWTW rehabilitation and construction.

Lastly, DWAF wishes to see rapid and effective action taken to address the threat that acid mine drainage poses to the immediate and long-term integrity of our water quality.

Changing water use behaviour for the future

Currently, there are two sets of behaviours about which DWAF is very concerned and that it wishes to address as a matter
of urgency. The first is the unlawful and damaging extraction from, and pollution of the Vaal River system by commercial users. The second is the extent of water use inefficiencies among commercial irrigation agriculture. Commercial irrigation agriculture receives 62% of allocated water and to date has been exempted from certain water charges.

It is DWAF’s view that this sector needs to make a contribution to the operations and maintenance of state-owned irrigation infrastructure as particular consumptive behaviours in the sector suggest that water may be too cheaply priced.

The department is also considering other interventions including water allocation reform, water trading and the promotion of techniques to enhance water-use efficiency by this sector.

Nurturing attitudinal and behavioural changes towards the value of water

Over the years DWAF has invested significantly in water awareness campaigns and intends to sustain these campaigns, especially targeting younger children of primary-school age.

The department’s philosophy is that meaningful change in people’s attitudes towards water must be inculcated from a young age in order to reap the benefits of these positive attitudes in the future.

However, these campaigns should not be targeted only at the younger generations and for this reason it anticipates the conceptualisation and launching of a massive national awareness campaign whose primary purpose will be to instil a sense of appreciation of the value of water among all South Africans.

The impact of the campaign should be a change in attitude and behaviour towards water conservation and water-use efficiency, resulting in the realisation of the Water for Growth and Development’s vision of “water is life – securing our needs across generations” underpinned by the principle of “every drop counts”.

The provision of potable water to every person in South Africa is a fundamental developmental goal that needs to be facilitated by the Water for Growth and Development Framework

Water can only support growth and development without compromising the ecological sustainability of the resource if it is at the nucleus of planning and decision-making.