WATER DEMAND MANAGEMENT & WATER SECURITY
TEACHING THE VALUE OF WATER
begins at school South Africa is becoming more reliant on groundwater ever y day but is not adequately measuring or controlling how much is
There is a need to re-emphasise the vital importance of water demand management (Credit: DS Photography)
abstracted. To avoid squandering this vital but limited resource, the countr y will need to raise more awareness among our younger generation. By Gert Nel*
T
he country’s smaller towns have long been reliant on groundwater for their survival, and ongoing urbanisation is placing growing pressure on aquifers. Clearly, access to water is a basic human right and water is an essential service that municipalities are mandated to provide – so expectations from residents are high. Many municipalities are spending considerable resources to get access to additional land where boreholes can be drilled. The problem with this scenario is simply that it is unsustainable. Groundwater sources are limited and cannot generally be pumped without consequence. Each aquifer will have a scientifically discernible recharge rate, and the extraction rates must be commensurate if the well is not to run dry. Many aquifers are shallow and are largely dependent on frequent recharge from rain. However, the national need for groundwater is currently being pursued without sufficient regard for both the supply and demand sides of the equation.
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IMIESA March 2022
Tracking water use
Engaging communities
There are certainly moves afoot to better monitor the volumes of water being extracted from our aquifers, through regulations to register water users and track their usage. So far, though, the trend is for more water to be extracted without giving due consideration to sustainability. In many cases, there is a need to re-emphasise the vital importance of water demand management. The challenge is really for communities to participate actively in ensuring sustainability in their water supply. The matter of access to water is by no means simple; there are local issues regarding inequality, affordability and wasted water from unmaintained infrastructure, and global issues such as climate change that make it increasingly difficult to predict water supply levels and recharge rates in certain aquifers. The fact remains, though, that residents of any community need to be part of the balancing act – ensuring that the water demand does not outstrip what their area can sustainably supply. It is also clear that not much progress is being made on this front, with the institutional focus almost entirely on exploiting new groundwater sources.
It needs to start with proactive awareness raising, knowledge sharing and collaboration. As far back as 2012 – and probably earlier – it was being acknowledged that waterrelated information was not really reaching communities in a way that had any impact on behaviour. In 2012, a report from the Water Research Commission noted that the way knowledge was being disseminated, particularly by government, was not encouraging individuals to question their water use practice or consider how to adapt it. All participants in the study agreed that presenting ‘factual’ packaged information was not enough; rather, learning resources were more effective when they engaged learners with water issues as they experienced them. “There is no shortage of water research knowledge in South Africa,” says the report. “But this knowledge is not presented in a way that is understandable to non-specialists.”
Involving schools The authors recommend that more thought and funding be put into the dissemination of resources, with a focus on how they were
