The Civil Engineering Contractor November 2018 | Page 33

INSIGHT
see that the Treaty and the Phase II
Agreement are really based on the
Diversifying sources
of water
Noting that 10% of all South Africa’s
water emanates from Lesotho, Ian
Massey, a civil engineer and founder
of MDA Consulting, points out that
South Africa needs to do much more
to diversify its sources of water.
This will come from three sources,
he says: desalinisation; water from
Lesotho; and water recycling.
He explains that South Africa’s
precipitation at 450mm/year
is just half the global average of
860mm/year, and yet our per capita
consumption of 233ℓ/day is more
than the EU average of 200ℓ/day.
Our ratio is unacceptably high, says
Massey, given the number of rural
people (approximately 14% of the
population) who have to carry their
water home on their heads and
www.civilsonline.co.za
principle of a 50/50 relationship. It
remains our role to rise above this noise and see the bigger picture,”
concludes Tente. nn
cannot reasonably carry more than
about 20ℓ.
As Cape Town has discovered,
water security is created by diverse
sources of water. “One of South
Africa’s strengths is its long coastline,
which means we can potentially
benefit from desalinisation of water.
Another source has to be recycling
of water — not much recycling
occurs at the moment and this has
to increase.
“Only 15% of the water in Africa
is effectively used — the other 85%
is wasted. Flowing down the Congo
River every five days is enough
water to meet all of South Africa’s
needs for a year. The problem in
Africa is that all the water is in the
wrong places, with the rivers in
Africa not being where people live
or where there is industry. And this
is also true of South Africa, which
is an arid, water-stressed country. Looking at water availability per
capita, even much drier countries
such as Namibia and Botswana have
considerably higher ratios of water
per capita than South Africa due
to their smaller populations,” says
Massey.
“Water availability in South Africa
is faced with the challenge of spatial
distribution. Of about 50-billion m 3 ,
14-billion m 3 is retained in dams
and consumed as follows: irrigation
(7 836-million m 3 ); urban
(3 332-million m 3 ); mining and
bulk industry (756-million m 3 );
rural (572-million m 3 ); afforestation
(488-million m 3 ); and power
generation (296-million m 3 );
for a total of 13 280-million m 3 .
This is only 5% less than water
availability. Access to water is one
of the key needs identified by poor
communities,” concludes Massey.
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