WATER STEWARDSHIP
Using good governance, stewardship to ensure water security
Major water users can adopt a globally applicable framework to understand their own water use and impacts
As South Africa confronts reality as a water-scarce country, more is being demanded of water users by the authorities. Water users face the challenge of ensuring water security in the face of changing requirements and expectations. By Giulia Barr
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he answer lies beyond compliance, in an approach that embraces good governance of water resources not only on-site but in the broader catchment. Recent regulatory changes have seen the Department of Water and Sanitation taking steps to reduce the 300-day period for processing water-use licences (WULs) to just 90 days. This has been welcomed by water users as a valuable contribution to speeding up the planning and implementation of projects. At the same time, though, we have seen that there are often further requirements specified by the regulator – such as additional technical studies.
Many of these studies highlight the potential impact of the project site on water resources – and vice versa – but some may not be applicable to the conditions pertaining to the site. They may not even be applicable to the requirements in the National Water Act (No. 36 of 1998). It is seemingly becoming more difficult for sites to successfully apply for a WUL, or to fully comply with the licence once it has been issued, as a result of the continual increase in studies. The cost and time involved in conducting such studies therefore deserve further consideration, as these may be deterring sites from obtaining or fully implementing their WULs. Stewardship The responsible route to water security in a water-constrained system is to avoid the ‘tick-box approach’ and rather to embrace water stewardship as a strategic principle. The regulations must, Giulia Barr, senior environmental scientist, SRK Consulting
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of course, cater for every type of site and eventuality, but not all these requirements will be relevant to every site. While a large, complex site might require five studies to cover the vital aspects of its WUL, a smaller site with less complexity may be able to accomplish this goal with one integrated study. There may also be very specific risks associated with a particular site, which are not covered by the standard, generalised conditions – and which could thus be overlooked, to the detriment of the environment. A stewardship approach begins with understanding the particulars of each site and goes on to investigate the catchment in which it is located and its stakeholders. This avoids the danger of being awarded a WUL based on standard conditions that may be difficult to meet, or do not apply to the site itself. Officials may even be unable to later change the terms of the licence when it comes to the standard conditions, during a licence amendment application process. Remember that a business’s compliance to the WUL conditions must be internally and externally audited each year, so the requirements must be suited to the site or they could become overly onerous and impossible to fully comply with. Action plan Among the useful strategies we have applied in our interaction with clients is a WUL implementation plan, where we
