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Article by: Sue Blaine
Source: Business Day Blogs
Here’s a suburban scene that makes my blood boil: someone using a garden hose to “sweep” a driveway. In fact, it’s not only in suburbia that you see this — I saw an employee of a top Rosebank hotel doing the same this morning.
 We still use potable water to “sweep” driveways Perhaps the reality is this: water is just not expensive enough in South Africa.
We have had endless government campaigns about saving electricity, but I have yet to see much, if anything, on saving water. We ignore water at our peril.
Poor-quality water “was of limited use and added to society’s economic burden through treatment costs and secondary impacts” on the economy, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research said in its a 2011 report on water in South Africa.
The country’s National Water Resource Strategy calls for “appropriate and timely corrective measures” to mitigate the effects of industrialisation and urbanisation on its water resources.
The CSIR report notes that in 2005, 95% of South Africa’s freshwater resources had already been allocated. The country’s average annual rainfall, at 450mm, is less than half the global average (850mm) and 10 of the water management areas in South Africa could not fulfil demand in 2000, according to the report. Continue reading We ignore water at our peril
By: Jeremy Westgarth-Taylor (Founder of Water Rhapsody Conservation Systems and winner of a WWF Green Trust Award)
Water is in the news again, but never has the situation been as dire as today. Quite simply – Cape Town is out of water. Any new augmentation schemes are not sustainable.
The following are proposed non-sustainable schemes:
- Damming the Lourens River at Somerset West: This will add less than one percent capacity to our beleaguered situation. There are no more rivers that can possibly be dammed to provide any more water for Cape Town.
- Extracting water from the berg by pumping to the Voëlvlei Dam: The well-respected head of the Freshwater Research Unit at UCT, Prof Jenny Day, commented that this was a “no-no”. Already the salinity of the Lower Berg River is rising to unacceptable standards, and any further extraction will make this worse. The situation of the Lower Breede River is equally parlous.
- Desalination of sea water: this is not sustainable as it is too costly on any scale let alone on a large scale. Costly because each kilolitre of water desalinated from sea water will cost more energy than we have got or we likely will get. Desalination costs eight kilowatt hours per kilolitre of desalinated water. Further problems of desalination are that a super saline concentrate is returned back to sea, which turns valleys in the sea into a place where neither plants nor animals can survive.
- Pumping from the TMG (Table Mountain Aquifer): Already we have seen deep boreholes dry up and collapse in this aquifer and any extraction from this aquifer will have a negative impact on the river systems as this is most likely where the recharge of the aquifer will come from. These are the same rivers that are now dammed to extinction throughout the Western Cape.
- Recycling of sewerage effluent: while this is to be supported, it must be understood that this will not be acceptable to some of our religious groups. It should also be noted that our sewerage systems are in an unsafe condition, and we need some 6.6 billion Rand to upgrade and build new sewerage treatment works. Here too energy plays a huge role, as 90% of the running cost of our sewerage treatment works is the energy cost of pumping water around the various treatment sewerage works. At last check there was only 300 million on any long term budget for upgrading sewerage works. Continue reading Future water supplies lie in demand management
Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 06 Dec 2011
Efforts to establish water as an agenda item in its own right in climate change negotiations are gaining momentum in Durban, South Africa. Water experts say doing this will lead to a greater focus on developing policy, and attract more resources into the water sector through adaptation programmes.
 As rainfall patterns change, Africa is facing major crises “For every one of us, the first thing you use when you wake up in the morning is water, and when we are going to bed, it is water. Yet, it’s taken for granted,” says Chris Moseki, research manager at the Water Research Commission (WRC) in South Africa. WRC is a member of the Global Water Partnership (GWP) – a global alliance of organisations working on water issues.
Access to water is an urgent issue here in the Southern Africa region, where nearly 100 million people lack adequate access to water. Modelling by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in South Africa shows the region will become hotter and drier over the next 50 to 100 years, putting farms, industry, domestic water supply and natural ecosystems at risk.
International water experts and policy makers are concerned that planning for changes to water availability is not getting the prominence it deserves. Bai-Mass Taal, the Executive Secretary of the African Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW), says they are working to raise the profile of water within the framework of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
“We are saying to the parties, look: we appreciate what you are doing in other sectors, but without addressing water directly, all of that will be in vain,” says Taal. Continue reading Raising the profile of water
Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 28 Nov 2011
The African continent is the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change due to its dependence on rain-fed agriculture but can harness the potential for hydropower, said Minister of Environmental Affairs Edna Molewa [...]
Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 18 Nov 2011
Capetonians could face stricter water restrictions as dam levels hit a four-year low.
 Save good quality drinking water - use grey water for irrigation Low-level restrictions are already in place including a ban on watering gardens between 10am and 4pm.
Adding to the low dam levels, rainfall this year has also been below average.
A UCT climatologist said of the past 10 months, eight had had below-average rainfall. May, June and July, usually the wettest months, were “drier than normal”.
Climate models showed this situation was likely to become more common in the years ahead and it could drive up the price of water.
Residents were being urged to conserve water. This appeal comes as climate change is expected to lead to rising temperatures and changes in rainfall patterns.
The City of Cape Town’s water department was due to meet the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry on Wednesday but has not released any details.
The city’s draft annual report says 19 percent of water was “unaccounted for”. This term refers to the difference in the amount of water purchased and in the city’s distribution system, compared with the amount which is sold to customers. Continue reading Residents urged to conserve water
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