Water Security in South Africa

We were always taught that water is the center of all life and fortunately many of

us have never known what it is like to live without it. For millions in South Africa, it is

sickening to think that they have lived without a large supply of clean water for most of

their lives on this planet. Water security by definition is the ability to access clean water

to meet adequate standards for things like food production, proper sanitation, and

healthcare. This means that if there is no ability to acquire adequate water supply, those

3 areas which the standards are set for are largely affected in a negative way. A lack of

access to good water for the production of food means that less food is made, then

demand for food goes up until eventually people can’t find or pay for enough food to

sustain off of creating a large population of poverty going hungry. In South Africa where

agriculture is prioritized by policymakers over recreational use (use by the people) it is

seen that poor communities are being forced to drink dirty water. In 2015, 663 million

people around the world had found it hard to find access to clean water and of that
population nearly half of them were living in sub-Saharan Africa and that statistic just

keeps rising. It is projected that by 2025, water demand will reach its yield rate putting a

huge stress on the poor who live there (von Bormann et al.). If those who manage the

water aren’t careful there could be a huge crisis in the upcoming years for those that live

under the poverty threshold.

South Africa is struggling to provide its country with clean water forcing the poor

to use dirty water for bathing and drinking leading to all kinds of disease on top of

affecting the food production. According to Julien Ntouda et al., nearly 80% of disease is

transmitted through water by germs or organisms living in the water in tropical areas.

One of these diseases is called

schistosomiasis, which is

contracted from a parasite that

lives in large bodies of water.

Schistosomiasis is only ranked

second to malaria killing 280,000

in sub-Saharan Africa alone and endangering 800 million globally. Those who live in

rural and agricultural areas are in danger the most because “communities are generally

poor, ignorant, have poor housing, have poor hygienic practices and have poor or no

sanitary facilities.” (Nyati-Jokomo et al.). Those who contract the disease are generally

unaware that they have it until it’s too late making it one of the deadliest killers. This

further affects the poor communities of South Africa creating a domino effect: the

disease inhibits their education and therefore affects their livelihoods and future. It’s not
as simple as the poor are being lazy, there is quite literally no access to treated water

for most of the population in South Africa. A study done by Jens Lange in Hobeni, South

Africa showed that about 50% of its inhabitants drank untreated water as their main

water source from rivers or springs that weren’t protected and 16% harvested rainwater,

only having 1 household have access to treated water. Around 91 households were

observed and 74% didn’t have access to toilet facilities either forcing them to defecate

in the open (Lange

et al.). Yet another

parasite called

Cyclospora

cayetanensis

create organisms

called oocysts that

live in feces which

when transmitted to

water can cause severe prolonged diarrhea among children creating another danger

that comes along with drinking untreated water. Since the demand of clean water is

expected to exceed the yield by 2025, policymakers and stakeholders are needed

desperately to do something now but today the political will is often nowhere to be

found. Without optimal water management poor communities will continue to suffer and

millions more will die.

 With the brutal semi-arid nature of South Africa stressing on the water supply and

its tremendous size housing millions of people, water shortage tends to be a huge

obstacle when focusing on water security. However, it is extremely difficult to provide

solutions which address conditions we cannot easily control like the climate. The

equatorial position of the country leads to scarcity of water leaving low amounts of water

to even be distributed throughout the sectors. Since there is a limited supply the next

best course of action would be to manage the amount of water between sectors and

people efficiently through decisions made by politicians and policymakers. Today, South

Africa struggles making those decision mainly due to its old apartheid policy, which

segregated people on the basis of race, another obstacle preventing people from easy

access to clean water. Advocacy groups had to negotiate with the national South

African government in order to gain access to water and to compete with other users

outside of their territories (​Meissner et al.​). This shows that a reformation must occur

among those who make decisions because they are not actively paying attention to their

constituents and their livelihoods. Furthermore in 1999, Margaret R. Biswas in her

article “Nutrition, Food, and Water Security” says that the political agenda is what

interferes the most with water systems and that the management won’t be efficient or

effective until it is free of political influence. Therefore, water can be seen to be used as

a tool of oppression against the black people living in South Africa. Richard Meissner in

his article, ​"The politics of establishing catchment management agencies in South

Africa: the case of the Breede-Overberg Catchment Management Agency."​ says that

the apartheid came to an end in 1994 leaving 35% of South Africans without water and
more than half of the population without basic sanitation at 51%. Under these

circumstances the government had developed reformation for water that would attempt

to fix what the apartheid system had created. Policymakers nonetheless prioritize water

management towards the other sectors rather than the people so scholars still debate

whether it’s the climate or the man that is the bigger issue. However, whichever is the

largest concern the water security problem in South Africa must be addressed quickly

before more unnecessary deaths occur.

There have been other approaches that the new government had suggested

such as the integrated water resource management (IWRM) and the river basin

approach that have been used to try and benefit social and economic needs of the poor.

They were able to accomplish that through coordination of conservation of water and

other resources throughout the sectors through

decentralization but the old apartheid system never

had local governments only relying on Traditional

Authorities. When the power switched to the new

system, there wasn’t a strong commitment to the

decentralization since there were no pre-existing

local governments to manage this water for the

sectors (Meissner et al.). Therefore, a new

approach that scholars have recently suggested called the nexus approach should be

used to combat this problem. The approach although young and immature, as

described by Sebastian Biba, should not be neglected since no other strategies appear
to be effective. The nexus approach has analysts recognize that all sectors are

interconnected so we should take all sectors demands into consideration when

coordinating the management of water.​ ​Since its introduction it has started to gain a

hold among many stakeholders taking the ​ IWRM

focus away from other solutions mentioned

before like the IWSM. The nexus approach

includes every sector in its method whereas

IWSM didn’t particularly benefit the energy

sector making the former more appealing to be

used. Keeping other sectors in mind is

important because in some way or another they

benefit the country as a whole.

It may seem obvious that first we must get water to those who are suffering from

diseases contracted from “unsafe” water but that would mean less water to be managed

elsewhere like the energy sector. Unfortunately, the size of the region does not mean

that there is equal land for gaining resources and therefore equal distribution of water.

In order to grow food, there must be sustainable land that will grow the crops while to

provide electricity for the country, South Africa turns to coal mining as its main source.

Coal mining utilizes water to power their processes, so if water is managed a way that

takes away from the sector, it will be depriving everyone from electricity not just the

poor. When these two areas, coal mining and farming, overlap however, the coal mines

will be favored over the crops because it accounts for 86% of the countries electricity
(Biba). The same study mentioned earlier done in Hobeni provided a solution that

seemed promising called the ceramic candle filter system (CCFS). Since there is a lack

of investment funds in South Africa to pay for methods that are far superior such as

ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis, this method was a cost effective way to filtrate dirty

water using a candle filter unit and two buckets. The candle filter is comprised of a

silver-impregnated ceramic

shell containing an activated

charcoal interior medium

wedged between the two

buckets stacked on top of each

other with a tap to drain the

water out. Although this

technique appeared to work and filtered out 99.9% of the bacteria over time the study

showed that after 8 months the filtration system was becoming less effective than the

projected time of 12 months (Meissner et al.). The researchers used dip slides to

measure the clean water for coliform, bacteria that can live in water, and found that

none of the CCFSs were free from them meaning that essentially this is not a valid

solution. If this were to work, thousands of lives could be saved because of how cost

effective it was but the lifespan of the invention was too short to be beneficial. This is

another situation where the nexus approach will be deemed useful because it is

designed to help make optimal decisions that will benefit the country in a cost effective

way while still preserving resources such as land used for coal mining and agriculture.
 Water security is vital to every community and it is something that South Africa is

in dire need of. Nexus management is a solution to this problem that recognizes global

trends such as population growth and climate change in order to account for that when

managing water. After analyzing, they will be able to provide policymakers and

stakeholders with optimal strategies that will benefit the country as best as possible.

This solution should make huge improvements over others because the cost of

implementing this approach would be relatively low and the benefits would return

extremely high. It is a relatively new approach compared to that of IWRM but the latter

has proved not to be popular among the energy sector while the nexus approach would

certainly address its needs. Water insecurity in South Africa has been a problem for

decades that has been neglected for too long.It has been taking lives of millions and

making families and their educations suffer and most of rightfully deserves a effective

and efficient solution that benefits not only the poor but South Africa as a country.
 Works Cited

Biba, Sebastian. "The goals and reality of the water–food–energy security nexus: the

case of China and its southern neighbours." ​Third World Quarterly​ 37.1

(2016): 51-70.

Biswas, Margaret R. "Nutrition, food, and water security." Food and Nutrition Bulletin

20.4 (1999): 454-457.

Lange, Jens, Tineke Materne, and Jörg Grüner. "Do low-cost ceramic water filters

improve water security in rural South Africa?." ​Drinking Water Engineering

and Science​ 9.2 (2016): 47.

Meissner, Richard, Nikki Funke, and Karen Nortje. "The politics of establishing

catchment management agencies in South Africa: the case of the

Breede-Overberg Catchment Management Agency." Ecology and Society

21.3 (2016).

Ntouda, Julien, et al. "Access to drinking water and health of populations in

Sub-Saharan Africa." ​Comptes rendus biologies​336.5-6 (2013): 305-309.

Nyati-Jokomo, Zibusiso, and Moses J. Chimbari. "Risk factors for schistosomiasis

transmission among school children in Gwanda district, Zimbabwe." Acta

tropica 175 (2017): 84-90.

Rosegrant, Mark W. "Challenges and Policies for Global Water and Food Security."

Economic Review Special​ 5-20 (2016).

von Bormann, Tatjana, and Manisha Gulati. "Food, Water, and Energy: Lessons From

the South African Experience." ​Environment: Science and Policy for

Sustainable Development​ 58.4 (2016): 4-17.

“Water Security.” ​WASH Matters​, washmatters.wateraid.org/water-security.

Zhang, Xiaodong, and Velimir V. Vesselinov. "Integrated modeling approach for optimal

management of water, energy and food security nexus." ​Advances in

Water Resources​ 101 (2017): 1-10.