Plugging leaks paramount, but other risks persist, DWS director-general warns

While many of South Africa's water challenges could be fixed by resolving the high level of losses in the water system, risks remain nonetheless, as South Africa is a water-scarce country, and climate change and growth, besides others, will continue to impact supply.
Raw water supply and demand in South Africa are roughly in sync, but there continue to be localised water supply deficits, delegates heard at a Talbot seminar discussing South Africa's water landscape under the theme 'Strengthening water security and business continuity for industry and mining'.
"Water is a very local function. There is no national water grid. We have over 1 000 different water systems, most of which are not interconnected in South Africa, and the reasons why you might have water shortages in one area differ very much from why you might have water shortages in another area," said Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) director-general Dr Sean Phillips.
Water deficits in Nelson Mandela Bay, from 2015 to 2023, and in Cape Town, which faced a Day Zero scenario from 2016 to 2018, were caused by droughts, while the challenges with water supply and the availability of water in Gauteng and eThekwini had nothing to do with drought, he explained.
Gauteng is currently facing a deficit owing to increased demand, high levels of leaks and a lack of municipal investment in water and sanitation infrastructure, with nonrevenue water at unsustainable levels of 47%.
"One could say that there is a shortage of water for Gauteng because the municipalities are asking for more water than we allow Rand Water to supply them through its abstraction from the Vaal river system. But the other side of that coin is the very high level of losses in the municipal distribution systems."
Similarly, the water deficit in eThekwini are caused by a delay in the uMkhomazi water project, rapid increase in demand and high leaks, as well as lack of municipal investment in water and sanitation infrastructure, leading to nonrevenue water of 60%.
He questioned the options of building more dams just to have half the water lost through leaks in the municipal distribution systems, or ensuring water security by reducing the leaks in the water distribution systems.
This is one of the potential risks to South Africa's water security in the future, should municipal water distribution systems continue to deteriorate and the percentage of losses in those systems continue to increase.
In addition, the average daily consumption of water per capita in South Africa is 218 litres, with Gauteng using more than 250 litres, well above the international average of 173 litres.
With South Africa being one of the 30 most water-scarce countries in the world, this is not sustainable.
"We have been singing this song for decades, but unfortunately, it is not getting better. In fact, it is probably getting worse. One of the reasons why it is probably getting worse is because of the high level of leaks in the municipal distribution systems," Phillips continued.
"We are in a serious crisis. If you look at the most recent results by the Blue, Green and No Drop reports, 107 out of 144 water services authorities rated critical or poor in terms of the performance of their drinking water or wastewater systems. That means that 74% of municipalities are in a critical or poor state of performance with regard to water services."
In addition to this, water availability could deteriorate as supply contracts and demand escalates owing to economic growth, population growth, urbanisation, degradation of wetlands and the impacts of climate change.
"There are many risks on the horizon. We all know about the risks brought about by climate change, and we are not sure the extent to which that is going to have an impact. It could result in much more intense droughts in future, as well as much more intense flooding, and the intense droughts in particular could have severe implications for water security in South Africa," Phillips comme...