My preparations for a trip to Cape Town to participate in an academic workshop discussing research on acid mine drainage got me thinking about SA’s water problems as a whole and what we should be focusing on to solve the country’s multiple water-related crises.
SA’s problems — and Cape Town’s in particular — are not unique. We are not the only country in the world that struggles with high water demand and scarcity. In 1997, Riyadh in Saudi Arabia had a population of 3.1-million people. By 2016 the population had more than doubled to 6.5-million. The city receives annual rainfall of about 100mm. By comparison, the Cape Town metropolitan region is home to about 4-million people and receives an average annual rainfall of 500mm.
When you look at the rainfall data for Cape Town over the past four years a clear trend emerges. In 2014, the city got 511mm of rain. In 2015 this went down to 321mm and this trend continued year after year, to 221mm in 2016 and 153mm in 2017. Even at its lowest annual figure, Cape Town’s rainfall was still significantly higher than the long-term average in Riyadh. Yet Riyadh is not facing any immediate shortage of water.
While low rainfall figures are the norm in Riyadh, its city planners have taken this into account and have constructed desalination plants to supply the city with water.
However, in Riyadh energy is cheap, so this might not be the best comparison.
Another way of looking at the Cape Town scenario would be to compare it with cities in similar geographical regions: Brazil, Australia, California, Spain and Portugal. All of these regions have faced or continue to face severe droughts. This includes a decade-long drought in Australia. Yet, none of these regions has a Day Zero that shifts with the vagaries of the political winds.
The third comparison is with Gauteng. In October 2016, the province was facing a serious drought, with the Vaal Dam storage system standing at 27% of capacity.
The same panic that is being felt in Cape Town right now was being felt in Johannesburg back then, but during November and December there was good rains, which increased the water in the dams dramatically.
Gauteng’s good rains may have led to the problems in Cape Town in a way. If a problem disappears, the collective returns to "normal" and focuses on more immediate pressing issues, such as adapting to three different ministers of finance in a week. The lesson here is that Johannesburg got lucky; Cape Town may not.
The point I am trying to make with these three comparisons is that water scarcity is not uncommon, drought is not uncommon and Johannesburg and Cape Town are separated only by fate. Pure luck, not design or by reaction.
The lack of water in Cape Town is self-inflicted. It is a consequence of nonpartisan, poor governance. The city, provincial and national governments are all partly responsible. It seems that hoping for rain has been the main approach to a solution to the problem, despite all the scientific data that indicated that hope was a futile solution.
The mad scramble to consider desalination as the last-minute cure-all is as flawed as the company providing electricity for it. Even if the desalination plants can be built in time to avert disaster, which is unlikely, Eskom required R20bn by March to keep its operations functional. If Eskom defaults and hence fails to produce electricity, the desalination plants will stop working. Also, 50l of water per person per day from desalination will require at least 30MW of power. This amounts to the capacity of one of Eskom’s smaller power plants. Eskom is already running close to maximum capacity and increased pressure on the electricity grid might lead to another series of rolling blackouts.
Water problems are complex. One fix can cause another problem.
We face bewildering water-related problems: acid mine drainage, sewage in our rivers, algal blooms and leaking water delivery systems. These problems affect the poor and marginalised most; they lead to disease, reduced productivity and lower quality of life. Every one of these problems has a technical solution, but they regularly fail. These failures — like running out of water in Cape Town — are human, not technological. And, I argue, political.
In SA, a good starting point towards solving our problems would be to appoint directors-general of ministries who understand their ministries.
The current acting director-general of the Department of Water and Sanitation holds qualifications in accounting and financial management. As an engineer, I cannot comment on his ability to prepare a balance sheet. However, it is concerning that an accountant is directing a critical government department where technical know-how is paramount to the decision-making process. We need politicians who will listen to and understand sound engineering, technical, economic and social advice that can be balanced with the political agenda.
Equally, we need engineers and scientists who are able to understand politics and social dynamics and who are able to influence the decision-making process before the decision is made. We need a democracy of discipline-values, where policy, economics, engineering, science, social science, law and politics are all treated equally. This can only happen if we can embrace humility as the tool to understanding the other.
Cape Town’s crisis may teach us all humility. It may teach our partisan politicians humility if governing and opposition parties need to work together to save 3.7-million people.
It may teach our economists and bankers that sometimes costs need to be carried, especially to save lives. It may teach engineers and scientists to learn to speak up clearly for all to understand, and to engage in activism, especially in areas where the evidence shows an impending crisis and no one is listening. It may teach us all compassion towards each other if we end up with a refugee crisis amounting to millions.
To solve our water problems will ultimately require that as a society we place a higher value on water. Fresh drinking water should be expensive. Water is a renewable resource, but not predictably so. As much as I am enjoying the rain falling on the Highveld, I would rather not hope for it to continue, but to plan for it to stop.
If I am to hope, I would prefer to have that hope directed towards a future where there is a meaningful intersection of policy, society and technology to deliver water security and resilience. This would be a meaningful change, one I would be prepared to rally behind.
• Sheridan is with the Wits School of Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering and director of the Centre In Water Research and Development.
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