Will South Africa have a Water War (2024)

When Cape Town was facing its Day Zero crisis, I was commissioned by a published to write a book on the topic. The publisher insisted that it be framed as a water war, which made me a little uncomfortable. In four months of concerted writing, I produced this document, recently updated. In the subsequent engagement with the publisher, it became evident that they wanted a more sensationalized narrative, which I was unprepared to provide. I therefore withdrew the text rather than compromise my integrity as a scientist. This unpublished text has been used by me as lecture material for MSc students at the Centre for Environmental Management, but beyond that, it has remained obscure. Recently, South Africa was plunged into a new series of water crises. First, the City of Port Elizabeth faced its own Day Zero, severely impacting the economic development potential of a highly industrialized city producing motorcars for the global market. Second, Durban was plunged into crisis as floods ravaged the industrial areas, followed by its own Day Zero that saw the creation of a special task team under the World Bank. Third, the province of Gauteng, the most industrialized of all areas in South Africa, totally dependent on the inflow of water via complex inter-basin-transfers from distant rivers, also faces its own Day Zero. This saw the creation of a Platform for a Water Secure Gauteng (PWSG), also under the leadership of a functionary from the World Bank. Collectively these three issues, covering the entire industrialized capacity of South Africa, are now at great risk. All major metropolitan areas in South Africa have been plunged into water insecurity, the genesis of which explained in this text. It is heavily referenced for the reader wishing to verify the facts mentioned in the narrative. The question is whether this situation can be turned around? What will happen when water security is compromised in the most industrialized areas of what used to be the economic powerhouse of Africa? This places the unpublished text into perspective, so it is offered here as a contribution to the political, financial, policy and technical discourses that are seemingly taking place in a disjointed vacuum. This text makes the case that institutional failure in the South African water sector is the outcome of a raging battle between the values of science that is perceived to be counter revolutionary. It became a clash between reality and ideology - between fact and aspiration - but it remained largely invisible to the general public. This single issue is of national strategic importance, so it deserves to be understood if the South African government is to self-correct. South Africa is indeed likely to experience its own water war, not as a clash between rival armies over a shared resource, but rather as a festering collapse of investor confidence, driving unemployment, eventually triggering a spontaneous uprising that is likely to pose an existential threat to the survival of the state in its current form if left unmanaged.

The Wicked Challenge of Sustaining South Africa’s Water Security

Repeated warnings about water crises have not materialised. The country has not faced rolling wash-outs or dry outs. There have been no electricity blackouts caused by a shortage of cooling water for electricity generation, and the City of Johannesburg has not been dissolved by an underground sea of acid mine drainage water. If the job of water managers is to achieve water security – the availability of an acceptable quantity and quality of water for health, livelihoods, ecosystems and production, coupled with an acceptable level of water-related risks to people, environments and economies – then, to date, we have been successful, despite our difficult physical, social and political climate. The challenge is to sustain and strengthen this water security in the future. Contrary to popular perceptions, the main threat to water security is not that the country is running out of water; that pollution is causing irreversible damage; or that climate change is as significant as many believe, although the next major drought will reveal many hidden weaknesses. This lecture will consider some of the less obvious but more significant difficulties that confront water managers and the South African community, and what is needed to address these difficulties.

water security in South Africa

This study considers whether South Africa is facing a water crisis and, if so, what the nature of the crisis is. It then reflects on whether the country is “water secure” and, if not, what is required to rectify the situation. The study concludes that South Africa does not have a national water crisis at present. Regardless of effective water management and service provision, however, a number of serious problems could arise that could prove to be the seeds of future crises. In such situations, water-related problems would have a serious impact on the country’s social and economic life.

Sitting on the Horns of a Dilemma: Water as a Strategic Resource in South Africa

South Africa is experiencing an induced scarcity of water as a result of policies that fail to address water quality. This is a complex political issue with a long history.

Ensuring Water Security in South Africa – A Grand Challenge

Critical assessment of South Africa’s water policy

2015

Abstract: The impact of climatic change on the availability of fresh water for human consumption has become a global phenomenon. Looming water scarcity has been projected for years ahead. Countries that are known to be semi-arid and arid, had to swiftly adapt their consumption patterns to mitigate to possible water scarcity challenges. Informed by the Water Resource Management Guidelines, SA infused the guidelines into its water management regime. This exercise coincided with the changes in the political dispensation of the country. Amongst all the policies of the previous regime, the Water Policy needed urgent attention. The previous Water Policy of 1956 was found to be woven with political motives, where ownership and access to the resource was in the hands of a few. When the African National Congress came into power in 1994, it adopted the international guidelines on water management. This free access was capped at 6kl for all South Africans for uniformity and equality in the man...

Water Security: Is South Africa Optimally Pursuing Its Options?

Water and Society V, 2019

Panic over water in South Africa's economic hub is misplaced

The Conversation, 2019

There is no danger of an immediate water shortage in Gauteng's cities . Specialists concluded very recently that no water use restrictions would be required in the Vaal River System this summer. This followed a detailed review of the state of the dams in the system mapped against possible future rainfall patterns and current consumption levels. But residents of Gauteng and surrounding areas should be concerned about whether the authorities responsible for managing water supplies are keeping their eye on the ball. Are they ensuring that plans to protect the province from shortages over the next six years will be implemented on time?

Transforming Water Management in South Africa

Global Issues in Water Policy, 2011

The state and water resources development through the lens of history: a South African case study

This article sets contemporary challenges to good water governance in South Africa within important historical context. While it is correct to say that ‘the world water crisis is a crisis of governance’, it is problematic to assume that all states can follow a similar path toward environmentally sustainable, economically efficient and socially equitable water resource governance and management. The nexus of decision-making power varies within and beyond states, and over time. Gramsci describes this as the ‘constellation of social forces’. Where this constellation of social forces achieves consensus, an ‘historic bloc’ is said to emerge giving rise to a particular state form. The South African state form has varied greatly over several centuries, giving rise to various historic blocs. The resulting body of laws and policies and the varied forms of infrastructure that were developed to harness water to and for multiple social practices over time constitutes a complex political ecological terrain not easily amenable to over-simplified frameworks for good water governance. This article outlines the role of water in the history of South Africa’s multiple state forms. It shows that over time water policy, law and institutions came to reflect the increasingly complex needs of multiple actors (agriculture; mining; industry; cities; the newly enfranchised) represented by different state forms and their characteristic political regimes: the Dutch East India Company; the British Empire; the Union of South Africa; the apartheid and post-apartheid Republics. Authoritarian, semi-authoritarian and democratic state forms have all used central-state power to serve particular interests. Through time, this constellation of social forces has widened until, today, the state has taken upon itself the task of providing ‘some water for all forever’ (slogan of the Department of Water Affairs). As this article suggests, despite the difficult challenges presented by a mostly arid climate, this means ‘adding in’ the water demand of millions of people, but not ‘allocating out’ those privileged under other constellations of social forces as they contribute most substantially to economic growth. The implication, therefore, is a modified hydraulic mission involving significant new infrastructure and, in all likelihood, inter-basin transfers from beyond South Africa’s borders.

Is Water a National Security Risk in South Africa

Nongqai Vol 15, No 10., 2024

South Africa is a water constrained country approaching the limit of its available resources. This has severe implications for social stability, investor confidence, economic development, job creation and national security. This paper gives some perspective on the evolution of thinking in South Africa where factional politics initially created capacity, and then destroyed that capacity in the intelligence services.