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Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 16 May 2011
Water security is the biggest threat facing society and the South African public should be taking water issues more seriously, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has said.
 Let's not think about building more dams “We’re naturally a country with water limits – it’s the life blood of our existence,” Dr Morné Du Plessis CEO of WWF South Africa told News24.
He made his remarks as the WWF celebrated 50 years with the striking of a silver R2 coin on Table Mountain on Thursday.
The conservation body has been a persistent activist for the protection of endangered animals, but also tackles wider environmental issues like climate change and renewable energy. It has lobbied the government to ensure that SA uses 100% renewable energy by 2050.
“Certainly we have a pre-occupation with catchments, so let’s not think about building more dams in our fynbos areas. There is surplus water we can and should be using,” said Du Plessis. Continue reading Water security is our biggest threat
Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 23 March 2011
“South Africa needs to be more sensible about the use and management of land and water resources. The more we reduce the ecosystems’ ability to deliver clean fresh water, the less water secure we will be and the greater the cost we will have to pay for our water,” says Mark Botha, Head of WWF’s conservation programmes.
 We need to concentrate more of our efforts on catchment security. Photo by: Peter Chadwick This week (20-27 March) marks South Africa’s National Water Week 2011, and the theme for this year is, “Water for cities: addressing the urban water challenge.”
“Many South Africans, especially those living in urban areas do not have a full understanding of where the water that flows from their taps really comes from, and the key role clean catchments play in providing it,” says Botha.
“Cape Town has run out of water many times in the last century. Each time an expensive “supply side” solution was found to buy us more time, but always at a cost. Now, with augmentation (further water supply) options rapidly diminishing, we’re finding that the biggest cost of dams is the complacency that they leave us with as ratepayers.”
“At some point, we need to realise that we cannot only continue building more dams and other water infrastructure, but that it is imperative to invest in the natural resources that we already have. We need to concentrate more of our efforts on catchment security,” says Botha. Continue reading Where does our water come from?
Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 19 March 2011
Healthy eco-systems matter and South Africans are not paying enough for the water they get, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).
 Agriculture uses at least 80% of our water in the Western Cape “We haven’t yet shifted the public perception about how important water is and we’re running out of sites to build dams – there’re no other rivers with excess water,” WWF living lands unit head Mark Botha told News24.
He said that South Africans were not paying for the water they used and that the demand for water would exceed supply, despite plans to build dams.
“Municipalities need the income that water generates and so we’ve built ourselves into this dependency on water. If urban water demand keeps increasing, you’ll never get to water security unless you flatten the demand curve.”
As SA prepares for Water Day on March 22, authorities accept that something needs to be done about urban water consumption, and acknowledge that there are “legacy issues” to compound the water problems.
Maintenance
“We have various legacy issues: There has been inadequate maintenance and we’ve reached the point where there’s no lead time. We’ve consumed 52% of our water infrastructure – that’s a challenge,” said City of Cape Town director of water and sanitation services Lungile Dlamini.
Botha conceded that the city was improving water management, but urged that high water consumers be obligated to pay more for their consumption. Continue reading South Africans are not paying enough water
Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 23 January 2011
By: Jeremy Westgarth-Taylor – Founder of Water Rhapsody. Inventor of all the Water Rhapsody Systems.
While the fear of water restrictions work in favour of those of us who are involved in water conservation, it would be preferable for all of us to have smoothed restrictions rather than an all or nothing scenario. All of us mean the population at large, the municipality, the Department of Environmental Affairs as well as Water Rhapsody. Please let me explain…
 Although the upper Steenbras is almost full the majority of this water is stored for electricity power generation Cycle of drought
Six, seven years or perhaps even eight years may elapse between one and the next season of drought. These years between drought cycles are winter months in Cape Town of higher than average rainfall, and the reverse in the northern regions of South Africa where we get summer rains. During these years of higher than average rainfall, all thought of the fact that we live in a water poor region of the world, is forgotten. Forgotten is the notion of drought by the bureaucrats and politicians that run our city. Drought is a long forgotten figment in the memory of the population at large as well. Every drought season, virtually a whole new generation needs to be re-educated in our need to use less water, and how to use less of the precious stuff. We should not forget what was written in biblical times that we have seven years of drought and seven years of plenty. While some areas north of Cape Town are experiencing floods of the magnitude seen but forgotten, the floods normally coincide with drought in the Western Cape.
During the years of drought in the Western Cape from 2000 to 2004, Capetonians had restrictions and increases in water tariffs imposed the like of which we hadn’t seen before. The city even appointed some officers to police water use, which officers disappeared into the woodwork (redeployed), and after higher than average rainfall fell in 2005 all restrictions were lifted with the exception of daily irrigation times(no watering between the times of ten till four 0’clock). Laughable though it is, this is the only water restriction left, and no police to check on this. It would be silly too to deploy a police force to check up whether or not you were watering your garden a 10.30 in the morning! Continue reading Does it take a genius to predict drought?
Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 06 December 2010
Tens of thousands of migrants pouring into Cape Town are forcing authorities to rethink the city’s water supply strategy.
 Migration growth is now "16 000 households per annum" at 5 people per household “There are quite large numbers of people coming in and the city needs to review its water-use growth strategy,” department of water affairs’ Western Cape chief director, Rashid Khan, told Sapa.
He said assumptions made by Cape Town’s water planners in 2007 were “now being overtaken by some serious developments, that is (population) growth”.
His remarks followed an announcement by the department that it was “exploring initiatives to ensure that water use in and around Cape Town does not outstrip supply in the near future”.
It had recently learned that “water use may be growing faster than anticipated”, despite significant successes achieved by the city in reducing water usage.
“An increase in demand could have serious implications for the supply area, as the next augmentation project may well have to be fast-tracked to ensure an adequate supply of water to every city, town and industry that gets its water from the Western Cape Water Supply System (WCWSS). Continue reading Water rethink as migrants pour into Cape Town
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