Good governance vital for SA’s water security in a shifting future

• Business, citizens and the government need to work together to ensure a more efficient and well-regulated use of this increasingly precious resource

The lush Carpathian mountains in Eastern Europe are a paradise of gurgling, pure streams and fountains – the stuff a Karoo farmer’s dreams are made of.

And yet my visit there in the early 2000s, a decade after the execution of Nicolae Ceausescu and the overthrow of the Romanian communist regime, revealed a shard of hell embedded in a failing state. The formerly powerful were generally the “newly” powerful, with a new mode of private enterprise.

Romanian “security services” armed with Kalashnikovs and Carpathian shepherd dogs stood guard at the mouths of deep springs in the limestone karst. This water source had been privatised — bottled and exported, off-limits to the locals who for generations had access to a plentiful supply.

In recent months in SA, minds have been focused on water scarcity during the drought that affected large parts of the country. And while the Vaal Dam may be overflowing, the Western Cape still has one eye on its dam supply.

But we are paying less attention to the equivalent risk of failing water governance.

It’s not as simple as dry days and falling dam levels. It’s a complex system in which all take part.

One way of exploring where SA is in relation to a number of possible futures is by exploring forecasting scenarios – something WWF-SA did in participation with The Boston Consulting Group and water stakeholders.

The power of working with scenarios is that South Africans are generally poor at thinking out of the box. New boxes are needed to think in – and scenarios provide them.

The future water scenarios pushed our imaginations around two critical uncertainties: the availability of water and the effectiveness of water governance. How much water does SA have at its disposal and how effectively is it being used to meet the country’s needs and to grow the economy?

The best-case scenario would be plentiful water with good governance (we called it the “big fish in a growing pond” scenario). But even this rosy outlook has its challenges.

With a thriving economy and strong governance attracting investment and stimulating growth, SA would still struggle to meet water demands and have a backlog of infrastructure investment to overcome.

The worst-case scenario was little water with weak governance (this was dubbed the “cry me a river” scenario). Here, unabated deterioration of water infrastructure, a loss of skills in the sector and little dilution capacity meant SA would face a perennial water crisis.

Limited pockets of industry and partly functional cities would be islands of sustained water supply in an otherwise failing state that would probably revert to aggressively independent strategies to secure their water supplies (the guard dogs and AK-47s).

As we explored the possible futures with water leaders from industry and the government, it became increasingly clear that one of SA’s biggest threats to water security was apathy.

As one participant remarked, “The worst thing is if this drought was seen as just a

for South African business and not a knock-out blow. We need to be knocked into the future today because this drought is the new normal.” He may well be right.

According to climate modelling by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, what happened during 2016 is a good foretaste — more frequent and longer droughts in the west and arid interior (Cape, Kalahari and Karoo) and more intense rainfall resulting in flooding in the north and eastern interior.

More rainfall in certain parts of the country could be a good thing, but if that rain falls in short bursts on land degraded by overgrazing or abandoned mines, it carries a lot more than water into the dams.

Counterintuitively, the dams could become less functional under these conditions. They will receive more silt and pollutants from catchment areas and have less usable yield.

So for those who have already made changes as a result of the drought (and the floods) and installed grey-water systems and another JoJo tank, conducted a water audit at the factory and replaced the leaking pipe, talked to neighbours about clearing thirsty alien vegetation out of the headwaters above farms, redesigned industrial process to use the neighbouring plant’s effluent – those changes will stand SA in good stead for a climate-changed future.

But these alone will not be enough. They need to be embedded in a stronger realm of water governance that extends beyond formal government.

While climate and water resources are complex systems with lots of positive feedback loops and tipping points, they at least obey the principles of physics.

SA’s governance system is even more complex, with some unseen positive feedback loops, and at times may not even follow constitutional principles. It can, therefore, be even more difficult to predict.

Some critical elements of governance can only be achieved by the state. The minister of water and sanitation is the mandated custodian of SA’s water resources.

No citizen owns water – it is a national resource and rights to its use are decided by the minister. It is her duty to ensure that water is used and protected in the national interest according to the principles of sustainability and equity. SA is privileged to have that mandate so clearly stated in the National Water Act.

In our discussions on SA’s water future, the role of the private sector emerged as critical. Partnerships with the private sector were viewed as positive, although fundamentally different to privatisation of water sources evident in other countries.

SA’s water source areas (occupying only 8% of land area) are farmed, communally and commercially, and forested in plantations. The daily commercial activities of agriculture have a huge effect on whether dams are filled with usable water or silt and pollutants.

The private sector, through active water stewardship and better crop and land management, can be the tipping point for good water governance that pushes SA towards a watersecure, thriving economy.

The country has learnt that its water supplies can no longer be taken for granted and it needs to become much more water conscious. Everyone has to find a role in building stronger water governance.

SA needs to ensure that supply and demand is more effectively regulated. And it should recognise the opportunities of building a new sector to create a water-smart economy and lead this field in Africa.

World Water Day (March 22) falls immediately after Human Rights Day (March 21), so it is worth noting that in SA, water legislation should mean the country will never witness the scene of guard dogs at a spring. But for governance to succeed, what is needed is the government, civil society and business to play active roles and hold one another to account.

Or else that final knockout blow may well be dealt.

IT’S NOT AS SIMPLE AS DRY DAYS AND FALLING DAM LEVELS. IT’S A COMPLEX SYSTEM IN WHICH WE ALL TAKE PART THE MINISTER OF WATER AND SANITATION IS THE MANDATED CUSTODIAN OF SA’S WATER RESOURCES