30 ENVIRONMENT and ENERGY
<< Continued from page 29
• The president of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, in his 2010 State of the Nation Address stressed that measures would have to be implemented to halve water losses by 2014. [ Editor’ s note: despite good efforts by some municipalities, we are far from halving the water losses ]. The NDP is also in support of the implementation of WCWDM in all sectors.
Therefore, all sectors need to move with urgency in the implementation of WCWDM measures.
WCWDM in local government Local government or the water services sector’ s water use is estimated at around 23 % of South Africa’ s consumption( including domestic and industrial use). Projections indicate that, together with industry, this is the sector with the largest expected future growth in demand, which will require continuous planning to balance supply and demand, thus making the implementation of WCWDM important. The local government sector offers the greatest opportunity for WCWDM due to the expected growth in water demand in this sector.
During droughts, some WCWDM measures are often enforced by local government through water restrictions; however, an appropriate municipal water control( metering) and pricing structure( billing and revenue collection) could ensure that these measures become routine.
A study commissioned by the Water Research Commission( WRC) in 2012 on the status of non-revenue water, found that only 132 usable data sets could be produced from 237 local and metropolitan municipalities in the country due to poor data and information management.
• The 2015 results from the study indicate that there has been a gradual increase in non-revenue water( NRW) over the past six years, with the figure standing at 36.8 %( 1 580 million m 3 / a from an urban consumption of about 4 300 million m 3 / a). This is on par with the rest of the world( world average of 36.2 %). Water losses, however, are estimated at around 25 %( about 1 080 million m 3 / a).
• In many municipal water supply schemes, the figures are even worse, with NRW up to 90 % in 2015.
• In terms of a loss in revenue, these losses account for more than R7-billion per annum.
This is unacceptable in a water-scarce country and municipalities will have to enhance their efforts to reduce water losses / NRW to become financially sustainable and to manage South Africa’ s water resources sustainably.
Second part continued in the April issue. PA
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Source Department of Water and Sanitation.