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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
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 – 20 January 2011
The National Water Forum voiced concern over the pollutive effect of the recent flooding on the country’s water supply.
Flooding in Gauteng.
NWF national chairman Louis Meintjies said that in Gauteng, acid mine [...]
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