Water
South Africa
prays for rain
D
ue to prolonged lowerthan-normal rainfall since
the beginning of the year,
drought conditions are being
experienced
across
the
country. The rainfall recorded
by the Department of Water
and Sanitation (DWS) during
the month of September till
the middle of October 2015 revealed that early
spring has not yielded the anticipated rainfall
resulting in worsening drought conditions in some
parts of our country
Minister of Water and Sanitation Nomvula Mokonyane in
November briefed the media on the state of water security
in the country and the current drought that has affected
parts of the country.
At the time of writing, there were water shortages in a
number of public water supply schemes/dams. But so far,
drought disaster had been declared in only two of the nine
provinces – KwaZulu Natal and Free State provinces.
“Currently large areas of KZN are experiencing severe
drought conditions. Despite the rains received in July,
the drought remains a reality. Our long range forecasts
currently show below normal expected rainfall and therefore
little relief is anticipated in the coming months,” said the
Minister.
From a water supply perspective, water security must
therefore be viewed and assessed in consideration of the
following water services situations – namely, users served
by large regional water supply schemes comprising major
dams and large bulk infrastructure networks.
These systems have a higher assurance of supply due to
multi-year water storage and lower risk of water variability
due to a larger spatial footprint and inter-basin water
transfers.
Water schemes
The bulk of the economic nodes and national growth
points are served by such schemes, totalling 238 schemes
nationally. The majority of these systems are currently in
a positive water balance with the national average dam
storage measured at 66% of full supply capacity” said
Minister Mokonyane.
Currently, in affected drought areas such as KwaZulu
Natal, the average dam storage of the large schemes is
69% with three of eighteen schemes below 50% of full
supply capacity.
Users served by local water supply schemes consisting of
smaller dams and/or groundwater resources are often more
vulnerable to the effect of droughts as there is generally
less water storage capacity, smaller water catchment areas
and only limited water sharing / augmentation opportunity.
Users with stand-alone or rudimentary water supply, such
as individual boreholes, rainwater tanks, springs and
run-of-river abstractions are most vulnerable and may
be impacted within relatively short time frames by falling
groundwater tables, reduced river base flow and depleted
water storage.
“An estimated 6500 stand-alone rural communities are
currently experiencing water shortages. These are mostly
situated in KwaZulu Natal, Mpumalanga, Limpopo and
North West provinces. This number could increase to over
11,000 rural communities as the dry period extends and
local water resources get depleted.
SABI | DECEMBER 2015/JANUARY 2016
31