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Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 12 March 2011
Postwar Angola is keen to expand irrigation for much-needed development, Namibia is prioritising clean drinking water and sanitation, while Botswana wants to preserve the integrity of the world-renowned Okavango Delta for tourism.
 The Okavango Delta is the world’s largest inland delta All three depend on an equitable share of quality water from the Okavango River, the fourth largest in Africa, running 1,600 kilometres from Angola to its inland delta in Botswana.
In other parts of the world, conflicting interests like these, against a backdrop of uncertainty due to climate change, have led several observers to predict water wars might lead to water wars. But the three countries are putting in place a cross-border plan to manage the river.
A trans-boundary diagnostic analysis of the basin led to a strategic action plan which encompasses national priorities. To this end National Action Plans (NAPs) are currently being formulated in the three countries.
“The realisation has dawned that issues in the basin are much larger than just the river that runs through it,” says Steve Johnson head of the USAID funded Southern African Regional Program (SAREP) that facilitates the NAPs. Continue reading Cross-border plan to manage the Okavango
Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 08 March 2011
The Western Cape’s current surface water supplies could run out by 2016, but plans for alternative sources should by then already be at an advanced stage, City of Cape Town utility services executive director [...]
Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 08 March 2011
Massive water theft by farmers from the Vaal River, and the inability of municipalities to maintain infrastructure, are two of the main causes that will push South Africa into a water crisis in less than a decade.
 By 2013, water demand on the Vaal River system will outstrip the available yield A paper by the South African Institute of Civil Engineering water division chairman, Dr Chris Herold, alleges that farmers steal about 175-million cubic metres of water from the Vaal, contributing to a significant reduction in the river’s yield.
“The water demands on the Vaal River have long exceeded the assured yield of the catchment. It has been publicly stated that by 2013, the water demand on the Vaal River system will outstrip the available yield,” Herold said.
“What is not commonly known is that this is based on achieving a 15% saving in water demand. To date no noticeable saving has been realised.”
This implies that we are already living with a 2% supply deficit in the Vaal system, and by 2013 we will face a 6% supply deficit, which would rise continually until 2019, when it would reach a staggering 11%, said the paper. Continue reading Water theft contributes to SA’s increasing crisis
Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 01 March 2011
Burundi has signed a deal on the sharing of Nile waters, paving the way for the ratification of the accord, which will strip Egypt of its veto power on rights to the river, an [...]
Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 14 February 2011
Increasing drought and aridity around the world, linked to climate change and land degradation, are becoming a major threat to food security and poverty reduction efforts, according to the United Nations’ anti-desertification chief.
 Farmers in Africa’s Sahel region have planted trees on 5 million hectares of degraded land, since 1975 Stepping up investment in restoring degraded land and curbing desertification could work toward solving a wide range of the world’s most pressing problems – climate change, food security, water shortages and the threat of growing conflict and migration, said Luc Gnacadja, executive secretary of the U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification.
“No one is unaffected by desertification,” he said in an interview with AlertNet. “It is affecting our food security, entrenching people in poverty, increasing our water stress and leading us to lose biodiversity.”
The U.N. desertification convention, a lesser-known cousin of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, aims to curb degradation of dry land around the world and the advance of deserts, a major problem in regions including Africa’s Sahel zone and China.
Since 1950, 1.9 billion hectares (4.7 billion acres) of land around the world has become degraded, a problem that has reduced harvests, contributed to changing rainfall patterns and increased the vulnerability of millions of people, Gnacadja said. Each year, on average, another 12 million hectares (30 million acres) of land a year is lost to the problem, he added. Continue reading Desertification and drought affects food security
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