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Ensuring water supply for all towns and locations in

the

Eastern Cape and Western Cape Provinces of South Africa

All towns reconciliation strategies study

History

In 2008 the Department of Water Affairs (DWA) commenced with a nationwide programme to
develop water reconciliation strategies for all towns, locations and clusters of locations across the
country, following on the good progress with the reconciliation strategies for the metropolitan areas.
The overall objective of the studies was to provide first-order water availability and water requirement
reconciliation strategies for all towns and locations in South Africa ( (Smith, 2001)). The large
numbers of rural locations that occur in the eastern regions of the Eastern Cape Province part of the
study area were grouped as clusters to facilitate integrated water resource management rather than the
development of a huge numbers of stand-alone schemes. Towns and clusters of locations were
studied in order of priority in terms of their currently perceived water resource problems.

The main objectives of the study were to:

Identify towns with an immediate need for high- water-resource or a water-service problem. The
intensity reconciliation studies in South Africa recommendations provide a list of the suitable
and the high cost of water transfer. Therefore interventions to address any current or future
each strategy was developed in a template that water supply shortfalls. In most instances water
provides an overview of the current situation, the conservation and water demand management and
current water resources, the existing bulk and the development of local surface and
reticulation infrastructure, the percentage of non- groundwater resources were the most feasible
revenue water it produces and the scoring in options to meet any current or projected future
terms of DWA’s Blue and Green Drop water supply shortfalls.
certification process in order to identify whether
a town, village or cluster of locations has a

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It was not considered feasible or necessary to develop an individual reconciliation strategy for each
individual town or settlement, but all towns and locations were addressed in the study. Towns,
locations and settlements were grouped together into logical clusters based on their current or
proposed future shared water resources for which a single reconciliation strategy could be developedI.
Current situation of water supply at local municipal level

There has been a major emphasis in the past surface-water and groundwater supplies
decade in addressing the backlogs in water- throughout the rural areas. The overall
supply infrastructure in the informal suburbs impression of the current situation of water
of urban towns, and in rural areas, with many supply at local municipal level while doing
rural water-supply schemes having been the study is discussed below in terms of
commissioned. These schemes include both several relevant aspects.

Water requirements

The water requirements of communities and towns vary significantly throughout the study area,
depending upon factors such as the climatic conditions, level of service, socio-economic situation,
wet industries, institutional capacity and consumer behaviour. However, there are several guidelines
on what constitutes an acceptable level of water consumption. The basic water services are defined
in South Africa as 25 ℓ/d per person (RSA, 2001), which equals the accepted norm for free basic
water of 6 kℓ/month for a household of 8 persons. The DWA recommendations for low-income
housing are 60 ℓ/d per person for planning purposes, while the water requirements in more affluent,
developed towns can easily increase up to 250 ℓ/d per person. The dynamics of water use for each
town may differ, but for the purposes of this study the towns have been categorised with respect to
size and locality. This categorisation is considered adequate to cover the majority of the towns in the
Eastern and Western Cape. Table 1 presents the categorisation of per capita water requirements for
each type of town (DWA, 2009b).

It appears from the analysis of the information gathered during the All Towns Reconciliation
Strategy Study that at least 34 x 106 m3 of water is lost in the Western Cape alone (excluding Cape
Town and surrounds) each year between the water resource and the end-user, of which more than 10
x 106 m3/a could easily be saved through the implementation of effective water conservation and
water demand management measures (DWA, 2011e). This would be sufficient to meet the annual

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water requirements of a town such as George or Stellenbosch. The situation in the Eastern Cape is
worse with several examples of towns where 50% and more of the water abstracted does not reach
the end-users (see Table 2). In cases without measured abstraction and consumption data, acceptable
water losses of 15% to 20% have been assumed. This stresses the need for a good metering
programme to better manage water and finances in every municipality.

The examples of high water losses in Table 2 are calculated water losses (or unaccounted for water,
UAW) for selected towns in the Eastern and Western Cape, based on measured data and or
observations. These are always non-revenue water and a loss of income to the municipality due to the
cost of purification, reticulation and operation that was spent and a loss

Smith, H. (2001). The Waters of South Africa. Cape Town: Nasoua.

venue that was not collected from the ers.

Water quality

Water quality of the resource and the drinking water is of concern throughout the study area with
many communities relying on untreated raw water from rivers, springs or boreholes. Many of these
sources, especially in the vast rural areas of the Eastern Cape, are contaminated due to a lack of
proper land management and source protection.

The Blue Drop Report (DWA, 2011a) provides details of the drinking-water quality situation for
towns and supply areas that are served from a water treatment works (WTWs). The smaller stand-
alone water-supply and treatment schemes may achieve the required drinking water quality standard
but often lack the required water-quality management to ensure continuously good drinking water
quality (see Table 3). This is partly due to a lack of water-quality monitoring at the source to
identify water contamination. Most of the small stand-alone schemes supply water without any
treatment, and without water-quality monitoring. Hence, it is to be expected that the situation is
worse than indicated in Table 1.

Figure 1

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Map of towns in the Western Cape, indicating their water-

supply source; (a) groundwater as sole source of supply; (b)
groundwater and surface water; (c) surface water and/or other

During the recent droughts in the Eastern and Southern Cape many municipalities invested in the
development of groundwater emergency schemes and established a number of boreholes for
emergency supply. Most of these investments in establishing emergency groundwater supplies have
been successful. However, the municipalities are still reluctant to incorporate this groundwater-fed
emergency supply into their regular water-supply system, despite its reliability and worth in times of
drought being proven. Groundwater supply is still seen as inferior and unreliable, an aspect that the
Groundwater Strategy 2010 (DWA, 2010) addresses through awareness campaigns and training of
municipal officials.
The information and recommendations from the All Towns Reconciliation Strategies are already
utilised for follow-up studies and the potential for groundwater development has already been proven
in several cases, e.g.:

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• Drilling of exploration and production boreholes has commenced in Middelburg in the Chris Hani
District Municipality (DM) and individual yields of up to 12 ℓ/s have been achieved, which is
sufficient to meet the current shortfall and possibly cater for future growth.
• Recently, several high-yielding boreholes of up to 50 ℓ/s have been drilled in Matatiele in the
Alfred Nzo DM, which, if confirmed by further borehole testing, could provide a feasible
alternative to the proposed dam on the Kinira River.

The DWA has recently embarked on an exploration drilling programme for towns in the Karoo,
mainly within the Cacadu DM. Towns that are in urgent need of additional water supplies were
identified in the All Towns Reconciliation Strategies Study and, inter alia, include Jansenville,
Rietbron, Steytlerville, Pearston and Paterson. All of these towns are solely relying on local
groundwater sources, as the climatic conditions are not favourable for the development of surface
water sources.

Conclusions and recommendations

The All Towns Reconciliation Strategies Study has shown that most of the current water-supply
problems and restrictions experienced in many towns and locations could be avoided by proper
management of the existing schemes. This must include:

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Effective implementation of water conservation and water demand management measures to reduce losses and wastage
Proper O&M, including making provision for an adequate budget for O&M
Asset management, to prolong the life of the infrastructure
Refurbishment of existing infrastructure to reduce losses and wastage

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