Water interruptions have reached crucial ranges in South Africa’s main city centres, with residents, ratepayers and companies sounding alarms in Gauteng, Cape City and Durban.
In Gauteng, widespread outages are linked to decaying infrastructure, rising demand and poor upkeep, with public belief in water high quality sharply declining.
Durban can be battling water shortages, the results of years of poor infrastructure upkeep, which has been exacerbated by a directive to cut back water abstraction from key dams, prompting town to impose water stress restrictions in an effort to preserve dwindling provides.
Cape City, lauded for its proactive water administration since narrowly averting “Day Zero”, has not too long ago skilled water cuts on account of infrastructure upkeep.
Water interruptions within the Gauteng Metropolis-Area are “by means of the roof” and dissatisfaction with water companies is rating far larger, in line with the Gauteng Metropolis-Area Observatory (GCRO) in its biennial High quality of Life survey.
The survey measures the standard of life and well-being of residents in each ward of Gauteng. The outcomes shall be introduced subsequent week.
“What we’re seeing within the survey this time is that individuals have even much less religion within the [water] infrastructure,” mentioned Gillian Maree, a senior researcher at GCRO.
“[P]eople don’t belief the water is clear anymore regardless that we all know our consuming water is of a really top quality … which might be as a result of they don’t belief the companies that they’re getting.”
The outcomes confirmed that satisfaction with water companies has declined by 10%. Whereas 82% of individuals thought their water was clear in 2018, this has now plunged to 60%.
“So, simply over half of individuals assume their water is clear. However I feel it’s due to all these water interruptions; they simply don’t consider that water is clear anymore,” mentioned Maree.
The survey additionally discovered that 19% of respondents reported harm or hurt from water or sewage pipe bursts. Maree mentioned this interprets into one in 5 households, which is a “important” determine.
Gauteng has been experiencing “frequent and widespread water outages”, in line with the division of water and sanitation’s Platform for a Water Safe Gauteng, which was revealed final month.
“That is most pronounced in early summer season, when water consumption will increase with larger temperatures,” it mentioned, noting how there’s an imbalance in provide and demand which can prevail till the completion of part two of the Lesotho Highlands Water Challenge, the Polihali Dam, scheduled for 2028.
Over the previous decade, there has additionally been underinvestment in municipal infrastructure, leading to companies decline. “There may be little redundancy within the system, with no reserve provide capability, with load-shedding, theft and vandalism all growing the issue.”
Municipal water losses (non-revenue and income water) “are extreme”, accelerating speedy demand development due to the inhabitants enhance.
“Many people, households and companies use extra water than is critical throughout this water scarcity, and decreasing consumption in any respect ranges is critical to deliver provide and demand again into steadiness,” in line with the platform.
The platform is a collaboration between the division, Rand Water and Gauteng municipalities. Its dashboard retains residents knowledgeable of water losses, water consumption and water leaks and outages. It has drawn criticism from varied water consultants for not reflecting a real-time view of reservoirs.
Maree mentioned there are complexities in managing the city-region’s water, which doesn’t have water assets of its personal to attract from. “You’ve bought to handle your entire water chain correctly, and there are failures alongside all of it.
“The massive factor we’ve recognized for years is the dearth of upkeep of our infrastructure [resulting in] all of the water leaks that cities are experiencing; it’s the non-revenue water and the non-payment for water, but it surely’s additionally on the identical time the truth that we haven’t correctly handled over-use, or the irresponsible use of water.
“Prior to now, it’s at all times been when you will pay for it you should utilize it, and now we’re at some extent the place there are such a lot of extra individuals who have come into the city-region, however the quantity of water that we have now is the quantity of water that we have now, so we actually have to take care of it.”
Language issues, too. Folks “have to recover from this concept that utilizing much less water means a drop in your high quality of life or a drop in your expertise. It’s not true, and we have to get up to now the place we may be extremely water environment friendly and nonetheless get the issues that we wish.”
Institutional points additionally want addressing, mentioned Maree. “Are the proper individuals speaking to one another on the proper occasions? It’s not the division of water and sanitation’s drawback to resolve — it’s all people’s drawback.”
Communication is a significant drawback, mentioned Ferrial Adam, the chief supervisor at WaterCAN. “The knowledge being despatched out isn’t ok — simply telling us that X reservoir is empty so there shall be no water isn’t useful. Residents need a timeline: what precisely is the issue and when will or not it’s mounted?”
One other challenge is town supervisor and mayor are silent. “They must be extra seen on the challenges within the metropolis,” she mentioned. Main issues are “associated to the 42 leaking reservoirs and failing water pipes, so reservoirs can’t refill.”
Water governance knowledgeable Carin Bosman mentioned: “Provincial and nationwide authorities are ratepayers in cities with huge payments and in the event that they don’t pay, town can’t do its upkeep.”
To resolve the “institutional drought” hampering water provision, “we begin with cost of municipal payments. We begin with ensuring that the cities have correct scheduled upkeep programmes in place and the cash to implement them,” Bosman mentioned.
“If we don’t try this, we’re going to preserve ending up on this state of affairs yearly in August and September till it begins raining.
“[But] even when it rains it received’t resolve the issue. You possibly can have a 100% full Vaal Dam but it surely doesn’t matter if the infrastructure to purify and produce the water to you doesn’t work,” she mentioned.
In a strongly worded water provide warning on Saturday, Rand Water mentioned storage ranges all through Gauteng have considerably declined due to extreme water withdrawals by municipalities, “elevating critical issues”.
“Rand Water has repeatedly warned municipalities in Gauteng about this potential disaster. We have now communicated by means of letters, held conferences with many municipalities, and engaged in discussions at Gauteng’s Intergovernmental Governance Discussion board and the Gauteng Water Imbizo.”
The disaster it sought to stop had now materialised. The water provide programs in Gauteng, together with Rand Water reservoirs, are critically low, and “it’s important to behave now to stop the approaching catastrophe”.
It’s working at full capability and can’t pump extra water into the system, and the majority water provider had suggested municipalities to cut back the bodily losses of 33% recognized within the No Drop report, restore leaks, implement by-laws, and tackle unlawful connections. “Rand Water is left with no choice however to take steps to guard its system from complete collapse.”
Rand Water spokesperson Makenosi Maroo mentioned it issued the alert to “conscientise and warn its municipal prospects and shoppers in regards to the hovering water consumption, particularly as we’re heading towards the summer season season”.
The alert got here as no shock to Anja du Plessis, an affiliate professor and analysis specialist in built-in water useful resource administration at Unisa.
“Sadly, what we have now warned towards particularly associated to the state of our water infrastructure, in addition to general excessive non-revenue water, has proven to be a significant challenge, with quite a few areas experiencing low water stream or no water in any respect through the first heatwave of the summer season.”
There’s a joint duty, she mentioned. “Municipalities have to lower their response occasions to leaks and pipe bursts and we as shoppers want to regulate our water use behaviours. If present traits proceed, we would face larger water degree restrictions.”
That the accountable entities for water provision are pointing fingers at one another is tough for residents to navigate, Maree added.
Ekurhuleni
Zweli Dlamini, the spokesperson for the Metropolis of Ekurhuleni, mentioned it runs joint campaigns with Rand Water and different municipalities to show individuals about water conservation and the water provide issues.
“We proceed to carry common conferences with all of the stakeholders to take care of this delicate matter of water scarcity as a result of we perceive what it means to the individuals.”
Ekurhuleni has launched a “struggle on water leaks” geared toward responding to leaks speedily, and the upkeep of its water infrastructure programme is “progressing properly”, Dlamini mentioned.
“So far as we’re involved, all stakeholders concerned and/or confronted with this present state of affairs shouldn’t be pointing fingers however slightly work collectively to take care of the state of affairs at hand. Water is a crucial want and each one in every of us wants it for survival.”
Nombuso Shabalala, spokesperson for Johannesburg Water, mentioned day by day technical conferences had been held between the utility, different Gauteng municipalities, Rand Water and representatives from the division to observe programs and develop plans to higher handle and enhance water provide.
“There are additionally scheduled conferences on varied platforms from water high quality adherence to planning between these entities, which seeks to enhance general community efficiency. This can be a crew strategy and the successes and shortcomings can’t be apportioned to 1 single entity,” she mentioned.
The utility is accelerating its water demand administration (WDM) technique, targeted on repairs to leaking reservoirs, improved stress administration and sensible stream controllers, amongst different initiatives, and whereas this work has began, it can “be accomplished within the medium time period to reap the supposed advantages”.
“As a stop-gap measure, Johannesburg Water has intensified throttling of high-consumption reservoirs and areas, particularly at evening, as a way to enhance reservoir capability for the daytime in addition to backlog discount and improved response occasions to bursts and leaks inside the community.
“Compounded to that is the fast-tracking technique of eradicating unlawful connections as a part of improved credit score management in addition to changing unreadable or defective buyer meters,” she mentioned, including that it’s embarking on the initiative to impose degree two water restrictions, “which might be extra sustainable” to cut back general system demand.
Johannesburg Water has a devoted crew of six full-time Joburg metro police by-law enforcement groups, largely geared toward unlawful connections. “Reported repairs of leaks and bursts and backlog discount are being fast-tracked by devoted assets inside every area to minimise losses and enhance service supply.”
Shabalala mentioned that “to get to the state the place we presently discover ourselves took a few years. Though Johannesburg Water has and had plans to improve infrastructure, assets at all times pose a problem. Nonetheless, with the right assets as per our varied WDM methods and infrastructure improve plans, we will show progress every year at a time.”
The Metropolis of Tshwane mentioned regardless of its quite a few requests to prospects to make use of water sparingly, its bulk water system is underneath extreme pressure and “could result in the municipality’s system operating dry and finally collapsing”.
Water scientist Ayesha Laher mentioned she is anxious that Gauteng doesn’t have sufficient water or reinforcement.
“Cape City did so many issues [to prevent Day Zero]. There have been stories on individuals closing their faucets, they had been checking what was occurring, they had been so proactive in what they had been doing. Do you see any of that urgency in Gauteng?”
The largest challenge is “all of the political drama going down”, she believed. “It’s solely about bloody politics. No one cares about what you have to really do.”
eThekwini
In KwaZulu-Natal, eThekwini metro can be dealing with a disaster after the water and sanitation division issued a directive instructing uMngeni-uThukela Water (UUW) to cut back its abstraction from dams, which diminished the availability of water to the metro from 10 October.
In accordance with the directive, UUW should scale back the quantity of water abstracted from the uMngeni system to its licensed volumes of 470 million cubic metres a 12 months. It will imply a discount on the present gross sales and abstraction quantity of 8.4%.
In response, the metro, UUW’s largest buyer, mentioned final week that it’ll set up water stress restrictors on all water meters within the metropolis to cut back consumption by households.
Mayor Cyril Xaba mentioned the curtailment aimed to make sure continued water availability during times of below-average rainfall.
“The danger of not imposing the abstraction restrict is that, ought to a drought happen, there wouldn’t be adequate water within the system for uMngeni-uThukela Water to proceed offering the eThekwini Municipality with a dependable water provide,” he mentioned.
In accordance with the metro, the common consumption of water per capita is 270 to 298 litres a day, nearly double the worldwide common of 173 litres.
The metro mentioned the curtailment isn’t water-shedding, which is a schedule for water cuts at sure occasions, however an effort to keep away from water-shedding by decreasing the whole quantity utilized in a managed method.
The metro will even scale back stress within the reticulation community, meter all unmetered shoppers, enhance turnaround time in repairing leaks and burst pipes and disconnect unlawful connections.
The curtailment shall be carried out for 12 months.
The town mentioned contributing components to excessive water utilization embody speedy urbanisation, unlawful connections and ageing infrastructure that leads to leaks.
However Faizal Bux, the director of the Institute for Water and Wastewater Expertise at Durban College of Expertise, mentioned the metro was taking the labour-intensive and expensive route of putting in water stress restrictors on meters as a substitute of utilizing the cash to repair its infrastructure and scale back its enormous non-revenue water losses.
“Non-revenue water is water the municipality loses attributable to leaks or unbilled consumption or theft of water. For each litre of water that they’re shopping for from UUW, greater than 50% of that’s misplaced both attributable to leaks, to theft or unbilled consumption,” Bux mentioned.
“Now it’s a concern that you’re asking the general public to cut back consumption, otherwise you need to put restrictors on their water meters,” he mentioned.
He mentioned Xaba had not too long ago mentioned he would prioritise this “however the proof is within the pudding”.
“In about 2009 our non-revenue water was round 32% and in 2023 it stood at 58%. We have now had such a considerable enhance of non-revenue water, which is totally unacceptable,” Bux mentioned.
He mentioned town had not maintained its water infrastructure from its reservoirs and distribution programs to its pipes resulting in households.
“They’ve a lifespan. They haven’t been maintained. They’re going to burst at some stage. Many components of town nonetheless have asbestos pipes. They wanted to have a upkeep programme for alternative of our water pipes,” he mentioned.
“The buyer wants to come back to the celebration. They should scale back water consumption. However I feel the low-hanging fruit right here for the municipality is to plug the leaks,” he mentioned.
Bux mentioned different municipalities within the province which have a smaller charges base than eThekwini would have restricted assets for upkeep and had been most likely dealing with a worse state of affairs.
Cape City and Day Zero
The strategy the Metropolis of Cape City adopted when confronted with Day Zero from 2015 to 2018 — and the response from residents — has been used for example of handle water shortages and communication on the difficulty.
“There was this institutional alignment; everybody was singing from the identical hymn sheet in a manner and institutionally, there was simply a lot better collaboration,” mentioned Gillian Maree, a senior researcher on the Gauteng Metropolis-Area Observatory.
The town conducts common upkeep efforts to make sure infrastructure is taken care of. This week components of Cape City skilled water cuts, which had been important for upkeep to happen.
“As a rising metropolis, it’s important for the Metropolis of Cape City to keep up its water provide infrastructure to learn its residents,” mentioned Zahid Badroodien, the MMC for water and sanitation.
“The upkeep work that takes place weekly types a part of the water and sanitation directorate’s proactive infrastructure upkeep and improve programme, which ensures the longer term continuity of town’s water provide by addressing the difficulty of unaccounted-for water.”
The work consists of pipe and valve installations, repairs and replacements. Residents are knowledgeable weekly on deliberate water provide upkeep work, which can end in non permanent water provide disruptions relying on the character of the work required.
The upkeep additionally offers with the problems of leaks. Over the earlier monetary 12 months, it invested R140.4 million in changing 50 170m of water pipes, mentioned Badroodien.
A devoted crew works on leak detections and is believed to “save nearly 4 million litres of water a day”.
The town can be conscious of the rising inhabitants and is seeking to increase water provides.
“The Metropolis of Cape City has learnt that we can not solely depend on dams for water safety in future, so town is investing in its new water programme, which incorporates tasks similar to desalination, groundwater schemes and reuse.”
That is a part of its long-term water technique to assist scale back Cape City’s dependence on rainfall and dam storage to navigate future local weather shocks and droughts.
“The goal is to deliver on-line different water sources that may serve our rising inhabitants,” Badroodien mentioned.
Kirsty Carden, the director on the Future Water Analysis Institute on the College of Cape City, mentioned the upkeep of infrastructure is usually reactive. “There are quite a few upkeep initiatives going down across the metropolis, most of that are as a consequence of some breakdown.
“Having mentioned that, town does have a programme of deliberate upkeep.”
The town is working exhausting to repair water provide issues, Carden mentioned. “It’s making an attempt to construct in resilience to its water provide system by diversifying provide sources — essentially the most essential ones at this level are the groundwater schemes and the handled effluent programme.
“The water reuse scheme could be very superior; there are some issues across the degree of stakeholder engagement and awareness-raising that has been completed, to make sure acceptance.