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 [...]]]> 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.

South Africa is about to spent nearly R1bn fixing the Witwatersrand’s acid mine drainage problem, and there is the enormous additional problem of eutrophication — the addition of artificial or natural substances, such as nitrates and phosphates, to natural water through fertilisers or sewage. The most common symptom of eutrophication is an increase in microcystis — blue-green algae producing toxins that rob water bodies of oxygen, making water sterile. Since 2005, it has caused toxic cyanobacterial “blooms” every year in Gauteng’s Hartbeespoort, Roodeplaat, Klipvoor and Rietvlei dams and in KwaZulu-Natal’s Shongweni Dam, according to the Department of Water Affairs.

To add insult to injury, tap water in South Africa could be undrinkable in future. Already, some of the country’s tap water contains poisons.

Poor-quality water will negatively affect the economy, curbing the manufacturing sector directly and indirectly, says limnologist Bill Harding. Limnology is the study of freshwater bodies.

Despite Water Affairs Minister Edna Molewa promising a turnaround in the parlous state of wastewater treatment almost two years ago, it does not appear much has been done to rectify an ever-worsening problem. The Department of Water Affairs is enormously understaffed.

The 2010 Green Drop (wastewater quality) report showed that only 32, or 3%, of South Africa’s estimated 850 wastewater treatment works complied with requirements for safe discharge. The report noted that only 449 of the works had been assessed, with the rest either ignoring, or being unable to comply with, the call to submit to scrutiny.

Only 32 (7%) complied with the Green Drop criteria after being measured for E coli bacteria, nitrates, phosphates, ammonia and other nasties.

The national Green Drop Programme was launched in 2008 and was meant to cover all wastewater treatment works to ensure they did not harm the water bodies into which they discharged their products.

I could go on, but I think the point is made. We do not have a lot of water. We are using almost all the water we have. We are “killing” a fair bit of our water, and still we use potable water to “sweep” driveways.

That’s just stupid.

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 [...]]]> 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.

Grey Water

Garden Rhapsody. A grey water solution by Water Rhapsody.

Director of DWA (Department of Water Affairs) Rashid Khan stresses the use of demand management as the way forward to use less water He also talks of the re-use of on site water but fails to mention “grey water” as a specific.

Grey water [water from baths, basins, shower and laundry] unnecessarily goes in the same pipeline as black water to be treated at sewerage treatment works. All grey water diverted from the sewer system and used for irrigation purposes means far less effluent to be treated.

All of our present problems of water supply would simply go away if everyone could simply use less water.  Halving one’s water demand is easily achievable by: (a) re-using grey water; either for irrigation purposes or toilet flushing; (b) minimizing toilet flushing with a device where the user takes control of the volume of flush and; (c) re-cycling swimming pool backwash water to the pool.

Furthermore there are now huge benefits of rainwater harvesting to supply whole households with rainwater for normal use i.e. for bath, shower, hand basins, laundry, toilet flushing etc.  This makes perfect sense if one considers that – of the water from dams that can be accounted for, 60% of water delivered to the Greater Cape Town area, is used in the home.

If grey water were to be re-used on a large scale we would see a reduction of up to 90% of effluent reaching our sewerage treatment works, saving huge sums of money and giving our sewerage treatment works spare capacity which they don’t have at the moment.

Water Tariffs

Water Tariffs are also set to rise dramatically as a tool to get water consumers to use less water.  The City of Cape Town has a monopoly on both the supply of water as well as the tariffs, except that one may now supply one’s own water by delivering rainwater harvested from roofs to one’s whole household during our winter rainy season.

On top of tariff hikes, water restrictions, etc. any further action by Cape Town, should we run out of water, would be to have water outages as a means to stem demand.   This was used recently in Beaufort West where they got outages for 36 hours at a time.  Making use of rainwater harvesting to supply one’s home would exempt the user from outages, as rainwater tanks double as an emergency feed of municipal water as well.

If there is any further proof that demand management could fix the water supply problems that are upon us, a Water Engineer of Cape Town – Dave Ramsay – stated about ten years ago, that when water restrictions are imposed, consumption comes down.  This should be enough to convince suppliers and users of water alike of the benefits of demand management.

However, he went on to say that once the water restrictions were lifted, demand rises again, but never to the level prior to the implementation of water restrictions.  This is perhaps because to stem demand, the City has historically restricted irrigation with municipal water, so to keep their gardens alive homeowners installed water saving devices, including devices to re-use grey water for irrigation purposes.

Edited by Saving Water

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 [...]]]> 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.

At this point, water issues are being discussed by treaty negotiators as part of wider planning, prioritising and implementing of adaptation to a changing climate.

Dr. Ania Grobicki, GWP Executive Secretary, says that with growing numbers of countries expected to experience water scarcity, the current position of water in climate talks is inadequate.

“The GDP of many countries in the least developed countries is dependent on water. More than 50 percent of food for the world will come from Africa in the future, and this is dependent on availability of water,” she says. “That is why this discussion should go beyond where it’s now.”

More than 70 percent of the Southern African Development Community’s population depends directly on farming, overwhelmingly on rain-fed agriculture. The CSIR’s projections are among many drawing attention to how predicted changes to rainfall, limited resources for adaptation and a lack of institutions and capacity to regulate river and stream flow will leave people in Southern Africa and across the continent extremely vulnerable.

Similar challenges are predicted not only for Africa, but across the world as weather patterns change, but Africa’s lack of irrigation and other infrastructure is a factor that magnifies the need for urgent intervention.

Africa’s response

As rainfall patterns change, Africa is facing major crises. Millions faced famine in Niger and Mali in 2010 after drought hit farmers and herders. This year, the Horn of Africa has been facing its worst drought in 50 years and millions are suffering from hunger. According to the U.N. World Food Programme, some 12.3 million people in the Horn are in need of emergency assistance.

Rhoda Peace, the African Union Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture, points out that when African leaders talk about climate change; they invariably talk about droughts and floods’, showing that water is already a high priority.

In 2008, African heads of state agreed to make water and sanitation a priority.

“Leaders agreed to allocate at least 0.5 percent of their national budget to water,” says Peace. “Now whether that is actually the case is another story, but some countries are doing very well and may reach their targets.”

Providing adequate access to water across Africa will cost billions of dollars. And for the many African governments which are failing to honour earlier commitments will not be able to raise the required amounts without support.

Simon Thuo, the Eastern Africa coordinator for GWP, says he is surprised that despite the clear need, even the African negotiating group’s proposals mention water only in passing. Along with other experts, he believes that if climate negotiations address management of this essential commodity specifically, it will not receive the necessary attention and funding.

By: Joshua Kyalimpa
Source: IPS

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 – 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 on Monday.

Africa currently uses only 10% of its hydropower potential

“The challenge for Africa is to decouple economic and social development from the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation to an extent which has no precedent in the developed world,” said Molewa, who is leading the SA’s negotiation team at COP17 in Durban.

Water shortages caused by climate change threaten agriculture and human health in Africa, she said. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted yields from rain-fed agriculture to shrink by half by 2020.

“This will spell famine for many,” she said.

Water shortages have already affected the agriculture and livestock industries in Kenya, she said, and African nations that currently have water surpluses will shift to water scarcity before 2025.

But Africa’s water resources could also rescue the continent from the effects of climate change in the form of renewable energy, she said. The continent currently uses only 10% of its hydropower potential.

“A national, regional and international effort towards unlocking this potential is an example of how African societies could go from being amongst the most vulnerable to become climate resilient,” she said.

Molewa repeated the SA government’s support of the “polluter pays principle”, imploring developed nations to fund green projects in developing nations, since they are responsible for the majority of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Africa contributes only 4% of global GHG emissions, but SA is responsible for almost half of that.

Molewa also highlighted the Africa Pavilion at COP17, which presents opportunities for green-development projects on the continent.

The effects of climate change on Africa are “unacceptable” and climate-change talks must “produce a credible, fair, equitable and balanced outcome” in the coming weeks.

Source: Business Live

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 [...]]]> 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.

The report for the past financial year calls for measures to prepare for a “water-constrained future”. Some of the alternatives are desalination of sea water and the greater use of groundwater.

According to the draft report, some water-saving techniques are showing results. One of these is a pressure-management system which reduces the pressure of the water supplied to city consumers during off-peak periods.

This results in fewer leaks. A project like this at Brown’s Farm in Philippi produced an estimated saving of R8.2 million annually. After the project was introduced, there was an immediate drop in consumption.

Levels of the six major dams supplying Cape Town are at the lowest they have been in four years. On November 7, levels stood at 86 percent. Last year at this time they were at 93 percent and at 102 percent in 2009. Levels peaked in 2008 at 103 percent and were 99 percent in 2007.

Farouk Robertson, spokesman for the city’s water and sanitation department, said the city had “never relaxed” its appeal for residents to use water wisely.

Robertson said the city had expanded rapidly over the past few years and economic activity had increased.

This had led to more water consumption.

He urged residents to “amplify water conservation efforts”.

One tip was that residents should monitor the moisture of the soil in their gardens and, if necessary, introduce composts which would reduce the evaporation of water.

Another measure was to use buckets to wash cars, instead of hosepipes.

Robertson appealed to home-owners to watch their water meters and report leaks immediately.

“If you are wasting water, you are depriving other people of good quality drinking water. Know what you going to do, before you open the tap,” he said.

Peter Johnston, a climatologist with UCT’s Climate Systems Analysis Group, said for May, June and July, rainfall was less than 80 percent of the long-term average.

Johnston added that as December approached and it got hotter, around 1 percent of the volume of dam water would be used or lost due to evaporation each day. Because, November had been cooler, it had lessened the impact of evaporation.

“This is the sort of thing we can expect. We should get used to this scenario occurring more often and it’s a call for all us to watch our demand and usage.”

The Department of Water Affairs and Forestry was not immediately available for comment.

By: Bronwynne Jooste
Source: iol

Rainwater harvesting should be made compulsory in all urban areas, the Agriculture Research Council said on Monday.

5000 litre tank used to supply home with harvested rainwater

“The majority of people are not [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 17 Nov 2011

Rainwater harvesting should be made compulsory in all urban areas, the Agriculture Research Council said on Monday.

5000 litre tank used to supply home with harvested rainwater

“The majority of people are not doing enough (to combat climate change),” said CEO Shadrack Moephuli.

“People are still using tap water for their lawns and swimming pools. But they don’t cover their pools to prevent evaporation.”

Moephuli spoke in Pretoria at the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research’s conference on water and food.

He said if urban dwellers were forced to harvest and store the rain water from their roofs, it would reduce pressure on the country’s water resources.

“It takes very little effort to harvest water,” he said.

He also advocated stiffer penalties for the water wastage.

Delegates to the conference, which ends on Thursday, heard the Limpopo River basin was expected to face diminished rainfall and higher temperatures as a result of climate change.

The basin is home to some 14 million people in South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique.

Moephuli said re-using partially treated waste water for agricultural purposes should be considered.

There needed to be a long-term strategy to manage the regions water resources and ensure it was not wasted.

He said a greater effort was needed by local authorities to ensure that leaking plumbing did not contribute to the loss of water.

- Sapa

The City of Cape Town has warned its residents they are likely to face water restrictions in the coming 12 months after poor rainfalls this year.

Mayoral committee member for utility services Shehaam Sims [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 14 Nov 2011

The City of Cape Town has warned its residents they are likely to face water restrictions in the coming 12 months after poor rainfalls this year.

Mayoral committee member for utility services Shehaam Sims said people in and around the city would have to carefully control how much water they used in the coming dry season.

“We had good rains this year, but they came mostly out of the wet season when the temperatures had warmed up,” Sims said.

“There was a lot of evaporation as a result and now the Western Cape dams are at 86 percent capacity, compared to 93 percent last year.”

Sims said Capetonians tended to use up every drop of water allocated to them by the water affairs department. A meeting between the city, the department and other water bodies would be held next week to decide on whether to impose summer water restrictions or not.

“Last year we were allocated a capacity of 1090 megalitres per day,” Sims said.

“Cape Town uses about 920 megalitres. We are quite close to the allocation.”

Sims said residents in the city should try to save water by reducing their shower time, only flush toilets when necessary and repairing leaks. She asked people to report leaks in public areas to the city on 0860-103-089.

- Sapa

The water supply to houses in Kimberley will be cut for the next two nights to help restore reservoir water levels, the Sol Plaatje municipality said on Wednesday.

The municipality is to restart [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 04 Oct 2011

The water supply to houses in Kimberley will be cut for the next two nights to help restore reservoir water levels, the Sol Plaatje municipality said on Wednesday.

The municipality is to restart an old water treatment plant in Riverton

“The exercise is only preventative and the decision to conduct the shutdown at night was to reduce the impact on the residents,” said municipal spokesperson Sello Matsie.

He said the controlled water supply shutdown was to restore water levels at the Newton reservoirs.

“We would like to indicate that there is supply to the entire city at the moment.”

Matsie said the controlled shutdown would be from 20:00 on Wednesday until 05:00 on Thursday.

The process would be repeated from Thursday night to Friday morning.

The shutdowns would help the municipality restore the water levels at the reservoirs to a comfortable level for a continued supply to residents.

Matsie said the municipality had also decided to restart an old water treatment plant in Riverton to improve the bulk supply capacity of the Sol Plaatje area.

“The refurbishments at the plant will be stepped up at the same time.”

The Riverton water plant would add an immediate 27 megalitres a day to the city’s water supply.

Once the plant was fully operational, this figure would climb to 54 megalitres a day.

Matsie said residents would be notified when the water levels in the reservoirs had been restored.

- Sapa

Agricultural methods need to be radically overhauled to ensure food production rises to meet increasing demand but that water resources are not depleted further by doing so, research showed on Monday.

An average [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 05 Sep 2011

Agricultural methods need to be radically overhauled to ensure food production rises to meet increasing demand but that water resources are not depleted further by doing so, research showed on Monday.

An average 2,000-3,000 litres of water per day is needed to produce food per person

A radical overhaul of agriculture could create farms that enhance, rather than degrade, the world’s ecosystems, said a report led by the United Nations’ Environment Programme and the International Water Management Institute (IWMI).

“Managing water for food and ecosystems will bring great benefits, but there is no escaping the urgency of the situation,” said David Molden, deputy director general for research at IWMI.

“We are heading for disaster if we don’t change our practices from business as usual,” he added.

Water limits are close to being “reached or being breached” in areas such as northern China, India’s Punjab and western United States, said the report, entitled ‘An Ecosystem Services Approach to Water and Food Security’.

It warns that the number of people living in conditions of water scarcity could rise to 2 billion from 1.6 billion if the intensification of agriculture is not changed.

“People underestimate the amount of water used to make food. An average 2,000-3,000 litres per day is needed to produce food per person, compared to 200-300 litres for household use per day,” Molden told Reuters.

“On a global scale, we are likely to produce (enough) food but that doesn’t solve the environmental problems and locally, we are already seeing the crunch.”

The world’s population is forecast to rise to over 9 billion by 2050 from its current 6.9 billion, putting more strain on resources.

“We need to double food production if population goes up by a third, because people eat more meat and vegetables. And if we don’t change water practices, we need to find 70% more water,” Molden said.

To achieve both food and environmental security, governments need to provide incentives to farmers to adopt more sustainable agricultural practices, he added.

Farmers need to think about their business as more than just food production, while consumers need to demand good agricultural methods.

There are many opportunities to use trees on dry-land farms to intensify the amount of food produced per hectare of land while improving the local ecosystem, the report found.

By integrating trees and hedgerows, farmers can prevent runoff and soil erosion and preserve more water for feeding their crops.

Last month, a separate UN report said a sharp move away from large-scale, intensive systems of agriculture was essential if growing environmental and land degradation was to be halted.

Source: Moneycontrol.com

Further embedding its commitment to environmental sustainability, the Nedbank Group is to invest R9 million into the innovative WWF Water Balance Programme. Water is widely acknowledged as South Africa’s scarcest resource and the one that [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 31 Aug 2011

Further embedding its commitment to environmental sustainability, the Nedbank Group is to invest R9 million into the innovative WWF Water Balance Programme. Water is widely acknowledged as South Africa’s scarcest resource and the one that will be the most impacted by climate change. Nedbank’s increased focus on water is a key part of their climate change response strategy and underpins the urgent need to tackle climate change impacts as will be addressed at COP17 in Durban later this year.

Wattles have taken over more than 1.6-million hectares of South Africa

WWF estimates that around 98% of South Africa’s freshwater supplies are currently allocated and that demand will outstrip supply by 2025, jeopardising economic growth that is vital for ongoing socio-economic development.

‘Through our provision of water infrastructure funding, our 20-year involvement with The Green Trust and our own sustainability initiatives, we have invested in a range of water-related projects in line with our water stewardship programme, which addresses water scarcity, water quality and access to water. This new multi-million rand investment raises our water stewardship efforts to a much higher and more impactful level,” said Mike Brown, Nedbank’s CEO.

Dr Deon Nel, head of WWF’s Biodiversity Unit, said that WWF has identified the availability of water and the health of water provisioning catchments as one of the most critical challenges facing South Africa.

Nedbank’s investment will fund the removal of alien invasive species, which is estimated to release more than 550,000 kilolitres of water a year, back into two of SA’s high priority water catchment areas.

Following its achievement of becoming Africa’s first carbon neutral financial organisation in 2010, water is the next step in Nedbank’s sustainability journey. A 17% reduction in its own water consumption over the past two years is further evidence of this commitment.

“Nedbank is making an investment, in proportion to its operational water use, into WWF’s Water Balance Programme. The programme encourages water users to take ownership of South Africa’s common water challenge by going beyond reducing their own water consumption to also making an investment back into water provisioning ecosystems,” explains Nel.

“This substantial investment links high level commitments (such as the CEO Water Mandate) to tangible on-the-ground outcomes in some of the highest water yield ecosystems in the country. In addition to increasing water supply, these investments into WWF’s water programmes will also improve water quality, create jobs and contribute to climate change adaptation and resilience.”

Several critical water catchments are recognised in South Africa as the country’s ‘water factories’ based on the high water yield of those catchments. WWF has identified five nodes in which these catchments lie and where the programme will focus its broader water stewardship efforts. These are the upper reaches of the Berg and Breede catchments, the Garden Route from George to Plettenberg Bay in the Western Cape; the Kouga in the Eastern Cape; the Umgeni in KwaZulu Natal and the Enkangala Grasslands (Mpumalanga). Nedbank’s R9 million investment will contribute towards work in the latter two catchments.

“When one considers that approximately 3,300 million kilolitres of water is trapped by invasive alien species in South Africa – equating to around 7% of the country’s water run-off – it’s easy to understand how important this investment is in improving water security in our country,” said Brown.

Importantly, he added, this massive amount of water is being prevented from replenishing the water ecosystems upon which our country’s environmental integrity is dependent. It is vital for this water to be freed up to improve water availability in a water-stressed country.

In addition, this initiative supports and complements government’s work in this area through its Working for Water Programme.

Valuable spinoffs also include job creation and support for farmers who show further commitment to environmental sustainability. “Water, energy and food security are inextricably linked and it is a pleasing addition to the programme that we can support the agriculture sector through this work too. We are enthusiastic about this next step in our sustainability journey and hope this encourages other corporates to play their role in making things happen” states Brown.

Source: WWF