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This review paper on groundwater protection measures in South Africa focuses on the actual implementation of groundwater protection measures, in particular, the resource-directed measures (RDM) as described in Chapter 3 of the National Water Act (NWA). Significant catchment-wide implementation of RDM has taken place in a phased manner throughout various catchments since 2012. By 2015, approximately R380 million had been expended on the catchment-wide implementation of the water resource protection measures over a period of 15 years. Considerable effort went into refining the RDM methodology, taking into account the groundwater component of the overall resource. In this paper, we contend that RDM, in its present form, will not make a significant contribution to groundwater resource protection and security in the country. This is a major concern because the Groundwater Strategy of the Department of Human Settlements, Water and Sanitation (DHSWS) had declared the protection of groundwater as a national priority. This paper also examines institutional and governance arrangements (or lack thereof) as well as providing recommendations to support the effective implementation of groundwater protection provisions as prescribed by South Africa's water legislation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

River rehabilitation projects are framed as water security interventions in South Africa. They aim to address water quality and water quantity issues, as well as to improve socio-ecological relationships. These projects acknowledge the value of capacity building and social learning in enhancing water security. However, they adopt different governance approaches and hence have different knowledge construction and capacity building outcomes. This paper employs a 'governmentality' framework to analyse the capacity development processes within three river rehabilitation projects in Durban, South Africa. The analysis revealed that the three projects, with their different governmentalities, produced different capacity development modalities, which are utilised to sustain 'the object of intervention' in each river rehabilitation project. However, despite these differences, information as the currency of action; the context or site of learning; the importance of building state-citizen relationships; and the need for bridges or intermediaries, emerged as common elements which support capacity building and knowledge sharing across all three projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Africa is a water scarce country with deteriorating water resources. Faced with tight fiscal and water resource constraints, water utilities would have to adopt technically efficient water management technologies to meet developmental socio-economic objectives of universal coverage, aligned to the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goal 6. It is important to measure the technical efficiency of utilities as accurately as possible in order to inform policy. We do this by using a nonparametric method known as Data Envelopment Analysis to determine, measure, analyse and benchmark the technical efficiency of all water boards in South Africa. Our contribution to the literature is twofold: This is the first paper to model technical efficiency of water boards as utility suppliers and guardians of water services in South Africa, and second, we address the overand underestimation issues of technical efficiency measurement in the water sector. We do this by modelling one of the most pronounced negative externalities from water provision (water losses) as an undesirable output using the approach developed by You and Yan. We find, on average, technical efficiency of water boards is 49%, with only three of the nine water boards technically efficient. Six of the smaller water boards showed high levels of inefficiency with an inefficiency rate of 51%, which is equivalent to wastage in expenditure of R3.7 billion. Six water boards operate at increasing returns to scale and two are scale efficient. Only Rand and Sedibeng water boards exhibited decreasing returns to scale. Therefore, redirecting potential efficiency savings to optimal uses could result in technical and scale efficiency for the sector. Scale efficiency results seem to support larger regional water boards as small- to medium-sized water boards are scale inefficient with low technical efficiency. For example, Amatola Water (small water board) with an efficiency score of only 16% has a total expenditure of 18% of that of Umgeni (large water board), but sells only 6.7% of the quantity sold by Umgeni. Amatola also has seven times the proportion of water losses compared with Umgeni and charges 1.6 times the tariff of Umgeni. The ratio model with an undesirable output outperforms previous methods to deal with undesirable (bad) outputs, which either provide an over- or underestimation of technical efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many countries in the world, including South Africa, are water-stressed with increasing pressure on their water resources due to population growth, climate change, and inadequate funding. Post-independence in 1994, many policies and programmes were introduced by the government with the aim of promoting water management. While these policies and strategies achieved much in terms of water provision to communities and households, they failed to establish a water-conscious country with sufficient knowledge and expertise in water management. In addition, these policies and programmes are outdated, compartmentalised, complex, and lack robust water governance with resilient stakeholder partnerships that advance the more explicit second phase of the National Development Plan (NDP) to achieve water security under the threat of climate change. Using data collection tools inspired by the traditional method of participatory research, this paper analyses the structural and systematic factors hindering the implementation of comprehensive policies to achievewater security in South Africa. There is, therefore, an urgent need for SouthAfrica to establish an independent water regulator to ensure coordination between different government departments, including the National Treasury, to strengthen weak governance capacity and to make it independent to attract private equity into the sector and to recover fiscal deficits in the water sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The water resources in South Africa are threatened by current and past mining practices such as abandoned and closed mines. While mining is considered valuable for its contribution to this country’s gross domestic product, its polluting effects on water and land resources have been criticised as unsustainable. Acid mine drainage (AMD) is one specific public health and ecological issue that has stirred debates in political and social circles in this country. This paper examines the scalar politics and other related dimensions of water and AMD governance, thereby revealing evidence of deep-rooted challenges regarding the governance of water and mineral resources. The specific focus is on the socio-political context of labour laws and Black Economic Empowerment and the decision-making processes adopted by government. Thus, this paper has implications for the improvement of environmental governance and decision-making strategies and the adoption of a national strategy for adequately addressing AMD and related policy issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A series of pollution control measures have been introduced to protect water quality in the Olifants river basin, the third most water-stressed and most polluted basin in South Africa. This paper employed an environmentally extended computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to analyse the economic and environmental implications of a tax on water pollution in the basin. Implications of increasing the pollution tax rate currently in place for the levels of economic activities and water quality have been simulated under alternative tax revenue recycling schemes. Results of our policy simulations suggest that internalising the cost of water pollution through the tax regime achieves its environmental goals of protecting the aquatic ecosystem, by shifting production away from pollution-intensive sectors. This, however, comes at some cost to the regional economy of the basin. Recycling the tax revenue through income transfers to households or a subsidy to pollution abatement mitigates the adverse economic impacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite technical advances, traditional large diameter hand-dug wells remain very important in remote and rural communities as a method for gaining access to groundwater for drinking, domestic and agricultural activities. This paper explores and discusses large diameter hand-dug wells in South Africa, with regard to their utilisation, research and development, and the legislative and policy framework guiding their development and use. While large diameter hand-dug wells have featured in national legislative and policy frameworks, and in early technical guidelines, in recent years the subject has not received much attention. There is also little evidence to suggest that large diameter hand-dug wells receive any attention in typical academic and research curriculums. While South Africa's national vision is to provide improved water supply schemes in rural areas under which clean drinking water can be accessed via communal water taps, it is clear that in some rural communities household large diameter hand-dug wells still remain the most feasible and convenient way to provide water, not only for drinking but also for agricultural activities - a key form of livelihood support contributing to poverty reduction. Large diameter hand-dug wells still need attention in the policy arena to improve technical guidance to optimise the development, utilisation and management of these wells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tuli Karoo transboundary aquifer (TBA) is shared between Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region. The TBA provides groundwater resources for various economic activities. Irrespective of the value offered by this TBA, there is very little research that has been conducted to improve understanding of the physical system and potential cross-border impacts that can result from exploitation of the aquifer. In the wake of this limited research, this paper uses theoretical background and conceptual understanding to highlight some of the activities that have the potential to cause conflicts within the TBA. This article presents and discusses the current hydrogeological conceptual understanding of the Tuli Karoo TBA system, social and economic activities and their potential impacts on the TBA. Based on the discussions of various scenarios, it can be argued that the potential for groundwater cross-border flow and impacts exist within the TBA. With the ever-increasing and competing demands for fresh water and unpredictable rainfall patterns in the region, the possibility of future conflicts cannot be ruled out. It is hoped that this study can assist in raising awareness about the need to address aspects of sustainable exploitation and management of the TBA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the centre of the water law reform process initiated by the first democratic government of the Republic of South Africa (RSA) lay the challenge of transforming away from apartheid water injustices. Reform culminated in the promulgation of new legislation, regarded internationally as ambitious and forward-thinking legislation reflective of the broad aims of integrated water resource management (IWRM). However, implementation of this legislation has been challenging. This paper analyses institutional dysfunction in water management in the Sundays River Valley Municipality (Eastern Cape Province, RSA). A transdisciplinary approach is taken in addressing the failure of national law and policy to enable the delivery of effective water services in post-apartheid RSA. A case study is used to explore interventions to promote effective water supply, locating these interventions and policies within the legislative structures and frameworks governing the water sector. We suggest that finegrained institutional analysis together with learning from persistent iterative, adaptive practice, with principled goals intact, offers a pragmatic and achievable alternative to grand-scale policy change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water policy and regulation are of vital importance for unconventional gas mining, which may have large impacts on water availability and water quality. However, various studies indicate that regulators have insufficient knowledge to make informed policy decisions on unconventional gas mining. Based on this observation we conducted a study on the availability of knowledge of unconventional gas mining of attendees at the 4th and 5th Orange River Basin symposiums that are held annually in South Africa. The study focused on knowledge and perceptions of unconventional gas mining over the 2-year period from 2012 to 2013 due to important developments with regard to unconventional gas mining that took place in South Africa over this period, which could affect decision-makers' policy decisions on unconventional gas mining. Our results indicate that knowledge of this mining technique among decision-makers is limited, primarily because fact-based research is not readily available. Reliable facts on unconventional gas mining are required in order to effectively regulate this activity in South Africa. This paper argues for fact-based regulation and adaptive management as the science and technology of shale gas mining evolves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]