Parched prospects: The emerging water crisis in South Africa

South Africa is over-exploiting its freshwater resources, with a projected widening gap between supply and demand by 2035. The authors find that the National Water Resource Strategy 2013 (NWRS2) lacks the aggressive measures needed to close this gap, which is driven by urban migration, industrial growth, and agricultural expansion. Proposed solutions include significant reductions in municipal non-revenue water, increased wastewater reuse, and expanded groundwater extraction.

• South Africa is currently over-exploiting its renewable water resources on a national level, with an estimated annual withdrawal of 15.6 km3 against an exploitable surface-water yield of 10.24 km3 (at 98% assurance of supply).
• Water demand is distributed across three main sectors: agriculture is the largest consumer at 57% (8.9 km3), followed by municipal demand at 35% (5.5 km3), and the industrial sector at 8% (1.2 km3).
• The authors' base case forecast indicates that the gap between water demand and supply will increase to over 3.5 km3 by 2030, only reducing slightly to 3.2 km3 by 2035 due to a projected drop in coal production and growth in renewable energy.
• Municipal water losses are significant, with a 2012 study finding that 36.8% of municipal water is lost through physical leakages or commercial losses, which the authors refer to as non-revenue water.
• The National Development Plan 2030's goal to increase irrigated land by 33% is identified as a likely driver of increased agricultural water demand, contradicting assumptions in the NWRS2 that agricultural allocations would remain static.
• The 'Mandela Magic' high-growth economic scenario would exacerbate the water crisis, increasing the 2035 demand-supply gap from 3.23 km3 in the base case to 3.77 km3.
• To close the demand-supply gap, the authors propose a 'close the gap' scenario requiring aggressive targets, including reducing municipal demand to 5.74 km3 by 2035 and increasing treated wastewater reuse so that 80% of municipal wastewater is treated.
• Climate change is expected to further diminish water availability, with the IFs model projecting an average decline in rainfall for South Africa of 1.9% up to 2030 and 2.1% by 2035 compared to 1990 levels.
• Water quality, specifically acid mine drainage in the Witwatersrand goldfields and Mpumalanga coalfields, poses a severe risk to the water supply and could potentially pollute the entire downstream basin of the Orange River.

APA

Hedden, S., & Cilliers, J. (2014). Parched prospects: The emerging water crisis in South Africa. Institute for Security Studies. https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/AF11_15Sep2014.pdf

Chicago

Hedden, Steve, and Jakkie Cilliers. Parched prospects: The emerging water crisis in South Africa. Institute for Security Studies, 2014. https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/AF11_15Sep2014.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Hedden |first1=Steve |last2=Cilliers |first2=Jakkie |title=Parched prospects: The emerging water crisis in South Africa |publisher=Institute for Security Studies |date=September 2014 |url=https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/AF11_15Sep2014.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{hedden2014parched, author = {Hedden, Steve and Cilliers, Jakkie}, title = {{Parched prospects: The emerging water crisis in South Africa}}, institution = {Institute for Security Studies}, year = {2014}, month = sep, url = {https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/AF11_15Sep2014.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }