(Delwyn Verasamy/M&G)
A lack of attention to maintenance and improvements in the water sector, combined with demographic changes, has led to water scarcity in Gauteng, South Africa's most populous province.
Unless society mobilizes towards full water reuse and fully treated wastewater recycling, the long-term outlook is not good, water expert Craig Sheridan writes in the latest issue of Water & Sanitation magazine. South African Journal of Sciencefocuses on discussions of service delivery.
South Africans are used to electricity rationing, which has been a part of life since 2007.
“Unfortunately, 'water outages' are extending beyond electricity into the realm of water, with 'water outages' – or intermittent water supply – becoming more frequent in Gauteng, particularly in the Johannesburg metropolitan area,” Sheridan wrote.
South Africa has designed an effective system to mitigate and prevent water shortages. Dam systems and interbasin water supply schemes have been built throughout South Africa to provide a continuous supply of water, primarily to Johannesburg and Gauteng.
Sheridan, who is also chair of water research at the Claude Leon Foundation and director of the Centre for Water Research and Development at the University of the Witwatersrand, noted that until very recently, this strategy had been very effective in ensuring safety.
The regular occurrence of intermittent water supply is a new phenomenon in Johannesburg. As a water supply management strategy, this has serious negative impacts. For example, it increases capital expenditure on residential water storage facilities by requiring additional capacity such as water tanks and booster pumps, damages the water distribution network and compromises water quality, especially in terms of its microbiological profile.
Water scarcity is defined as a situation in which the demand for water exceeds the supply, Sheridan said. The Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) allocates water based on the population of an area and the availability of water in reservoir systems such as dams to ensure the country's security.
This allocation is sold by the department to the water authority (Rand Water in Gauteng province, which includes Johannesburg) which processes the fresh water into drinking quality. This fresh drinking water is sold to several metropolitan municipalities, including Johannesburg Water as the metropolitan municipality, who then sell it to consumers.
“However, because DWS is responsible for supplying both current and future needs, there is currently a mismatch between what the department sells and what is needed,” Sheridan said.
South Africa, and Johannesburg in particular, is not short of water. The city is “currently running out of water,” although that could change quickly “if we experience a day-zero drought.”
Johannesburg sits on the African Continental Divide, more than 1,600 metres above sea level, but has no major rivers or natural water sources and relies entirely on imports for its water. To ensure water security, Lesotho is building additional dams as part of the Lesotho Highlands Relocation Plan.
“Unfortunately, the construction of these dams is eight years behind schedule. This delay coincides with the time when Gauteng's population grew from 12 million to 15 million, meaning that in 2023 the province will have the same water storage capacity for a 25 per cent larger population,” Sheridan wrote.
The City of Johannesburg has increased intermittent water supply to customers over the past three to four years, and “the summer of 2023-2024 will see more frequent water outages, especially for people living in the city's higher ground and older suburbs.”
These characteristics meet all the criteria for an unstable water supply, including demand exceeding supply: “In older suburbs, the initial cause of these blackouts was mainly leaking water mains, which were then repaired. During the repair work, the water supply to the entire suburb was cut off.”
This temporary nature of intermittent supply has “now completely changed,” pointing to a large system that is not being properly maintained.
“When minimal maintenance is carried out, work is not completed properly, which leaves roads with extensive excavation work that can last for months after plumbing repairs have been made and often leads to ongoing leaks even after plumbing repairs have been made,” Sheridan said.
“This is now happening in all suburbs. While this was happening (and is still happening) in Johannesburg, Hammanskraal in Pretoria had a cholera outbreak in 2023 that claimed more than 30 lives.”
At the same time, the Blue Drop and Green Drop audits and reports were reinstalled and released, highlighting the growing failure of freshwater treatment plants, which provide the country's drinking water, and wastewater treatment plants, which treat the country's sewage, a trend seen across the country.
Similarly, the water leakage report also revealed the amount of water stolen or lost due to leaking pipes, which in Johannesburg's case is close to 50%: “This means that Gauteng's water allocation distributed to Johannesburg, Pretoria and other cities will be reduced by 50% due to theft and leakage (in the case of Johannesburg).”
The department has no intention of increasing Gauteng's allocation as it is the manager of water resources at a national level. “The department is interested in meeting the current and future needs of the whole country, not just the immediate needs of Gauteng and Johannesburg. These statistics show that we have 50% less water for a 25% increase in population. This extra usage and losses is overloading the entire system. The rate of drawdown in drinking water reservoirs is higher than maximum recharge rate.”
This discrepancy has led to reservoirs emptying, the City of Johannesburg curtailing supply during periods of high demand to allow reservoirs to replenish, and many residents going without water not just overnight, but in some cases for weeks at a time. Those living in the highest elevations are hit hardest.
What's more, when there are power outages or problems with the electricity supply, the pumping stations often fail too. “This is the current state of Johannesburg's water system in particular,” Sheridan wrote, blaming the city government for the poor state of the system.
He said it's possible to survive for a few weeks without electricity or water, but options are narrowing quickly in terms of how long people can hold out.
“The cost of buying bottled or packaged water is prohibitive but is the only option in these circumstances. For those who grow food in gardens, as is the case in many poor settlements, the costs increase exponentially as allotment gardens that contribute to food security are water-scarce, dry and infertile,” he said, noting that the poorest have to buy not only water but also extra food.
Sheridan said South Africa has little room left to build new large dams, which means that the country will be less water secure after 2028, especially if the country continues with its current social, cultural, political and engineering practices.
Demand for water is also increasing as the “chaotic” effects of the climate crisis cause rising temperatures, increased evaporation losses from dams, and increased incidence of flooding from larger storms, “posing a very real risk of destroying infrastructure such as dams, water treatment plants and wastewater treatment plants.”
Johannesburg in particular still uses too much water per person – more than any other province – despite high rates of water loss due to infrastructure failure, and reforms are needed to ensure long-term sustainability and improve water security, he said.
Sheridan said there had to be a real change in water economics and pricing: “We could charge much higher rates to water users who exceed their fair share… and that would undoubtedly reduce consumption.”
Governments in the country's cities, particularly Johannesburg, urgently need to secure funding for maintenance and infrastructure improvements.
“As a global society, we need to rethink the value of water. Our future requires some truly creative problem-solving. We may need to consider how we transport water from the tropical regions of Africa, including from the Congo Belt and the Zambezi River.”
Once the energy crisis is resolved, opportunities to desalinize seawater and mine water to augment drinking water supplies may become feasible.
“But as the world population approaches 10 billion, we will need to reuse wastewater directly (for drinking water) in the future.”
It remains crucial that further research be conducted to understand how pathogens (including emerging pathogens and viruses) and emerging contaminants (such as pharmaceuticals and pesticides) behave within wastewater treatment plants.
“The idea is to ensure that society is not harmed by increased exposure to potentially harmful levels of these compounds when they are returned to treated wastewater, particularly drinking water systems,” Sheridan said, noting that if not removed at wastewater treatment plants, these compounds would build up and possibly reach toxic levels.
South Africans need extensive public education to remove the “unpleasant feeling” of drinking treated sewage, when they already drink from river sources that are highly polluted by sewage and wastewater treatment plant effluents, “a situation made even worse by inadequate wastewater treatment plants.”
