The Outlier asked two experts – Associate Professor of Geography at Unisa Anja du Plessis and Professor Carolyn “Tally” Palmer, the former director of the Institute for Water Research, which hosts the ARUA Water Centre of Excellence, based at Rhodes University – about the challenges municipalities face supplying water to South Africans. Here our lightly edited discussion. 

1. Broadly speaking, what are the biggest challenges facing municipalities supplying water in South Africa? 

Palmer: One of the things to really get your head around is the difference between what we call primary water scarcity and secondary water scarcity. So water scarcity is when you don’t have enough. Primary water scarcity is when there is actually not enough water. It’s [caused by] drought and climate change. And there isn’t water in the reservoir or the river. Secondary scarcity is when there’s enough water in the system, but we can’t get it to people. 

Secondary scarcity is what most municipalities face at the moment.

You are currently in an acute and difficult situation. Because, all the years of low maintenance and inadequate maintenance didn’t start in 1994. So inadequate maintenance and the slowness to develop city wastewater treatments is much older. So we have a historical wait.

Du Plessis: Primary challenges include capacity constraints as well as in some cases lack of skills/ qualifications and/or experience to deal with water-related issues. These challenges in turn create other primary challenges which include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • The mismanagement of funds;
  • Non-maintenance of aged and/or dilapidated water infrastructure;
  • Dysfunctional wastewater treatment works due to non-maintenance or being over-capacity due to increased development;
  • Poor/unreliable water supply and sanitation service delivery;
  • Challenge to provide clean drinking water in the event of damaged or decayed water-related infrastructure;
  • Lack of enforcement and implementation of existing legislation, policies and strategies.

2. And do urban areas have a better water supply than our rural neighbours? If this is the case, can you elaborate on why?

Palmer: So the question of rural spaces now in South Africa, we’ve had two systems of land ownership. One is private land ownership, and the other is communal land ownership. So let’s deal with the spaces that are in private land ownership. First, private land ownership, historically, pre-94 was racially divided. Now agriculture uses 74% of the country’s water. So now you see a privately owned agricultural sector, using a lot of the country’s water, using government support and building their own irrigation infrastructure. 

It’s much more difficult, at least in the community owned areas. Because in communally owned areas, you don’t have this historical private investment in infrastructure. People are much more dependent on springs and rivers for household water capture. Which means you’re back in the domain of the government managing the resources we have.

Du Plessis: Urban areas are in a better situation compared to rural areas as urban settlements have existing water access and supply infrastructure, sanitation services and mostly functioning wastewater treatment facilities if properly managed by relevant levels of government, water utilities and stakeholders.

Rural areas are unfortunately, still lagging behind due to the continued existing backlog of providing water access and sanitation infrastructure and/or facilities as well as actual service delivery. 

Rural areas also experience poor service delivery with regular intermittent water supply or even no water for days. The water tanks as well as communal taps provided are also not properly maintained or serviced and leak on a regular basis.

3. What needs to be done by local governments to ensure an equitable water supply? How long would it take (ideally)?

Palmer: There is no quick fix to water in South Africa or anywhere in the world. But the two critical things are good governance, and good people.

So you need systems of governance in a political space that is trustworthy and transparent and honest. And you need the possibility of having really good people.

Now both of those are inherently difficult in South Africa at this point in our history.

Du Plessis: For the country to increase equitable water supply, it needs to address the ongoing backlog of the lack of suitable water and sanitation infrastructure in rural areas and complete water projects. Seeing that predictions show that the country’s water resources will be fully allocated by 2025 and the country reaching a water deficit of 17% by 2030, an immense effort is required, and water needs to be placed higher on the political agenda. 

4. And because of South Africa’s growing population, do we need more reservoirs and wastewater treatment plants? And if so, where would these reservoirs and wastewater treatment plants need to be built?

Palmer: If we’re not managing water resources in the whole country and taking care of pollution and landscape degradation and the protective ways of looking after your catchments, protecting upper catchment areas, then it doesn’t matter how good your governance and everything is. Ultimately, the quality of the resources is going to go down. You have to look after the whole system.

You would need a focused national effort at getting wastewater treatment upgrades and development in place. We’ve got to start tomorrow. We’ve got to start fixing things one small thing at a time we’ve got a lobby into government we’ve got to use

Du Plessis: Due to expanding urban areas due to continued population growth, rural-urban migration as well as socio-economic growth, these urban areas will require the upgrading of wastewater treatment plants to be able to cope with the increased load. 

Building more dams might not be a sustainable solution due to the country’s semi-arid climate and few viable sites left. 

Proper spatial planning needs to be completed to ensure that water systems can function/handle increased wastewater produced by the increased population and expansion of urban areas.

5. With the water challenges facing most South African municipalities, what can residents do to ensure that they have clean water? Should communities band together to install Jojo tanks?

Palmer: It comes down to household water security, it comes down to you doing the best to secure your water. And your best is, very simply, rainwater harvesting, and storing any municipal water you get as efficiently as possible.

Du Plessis: Short-term solutions such as rainwater harvesting, and the re-use of greywater can be implemented to cope with immediate intermittent water supply however these are not solutions or alternatives for drinking water supply as the collected water is not suitable for human consumption.

Correction: We previously referred to Professor Carolyn “Tally” Palmer as the current director of the Institute for Water Research. She is the former director of the Institute,which hosts the ARUA Water Centre of Excellence.