Groundwater Awareness Campaign

The Groundwater Awareness Campaign 2021 is a guide and educational toolkit developed by WWF South Africa and The Greenpop Foundation to teach primary school students (Grades 4-7) about groundwater, aquifers, and water conservation. The document provides teacher and learner information packs, including three structured geography lessons and a poster competition designed to encourage students to become stewards of water awareness in their communities, particularly in the context of the Western Cape and Cape Town.

• Groundwater is stored in subsurface geological formations called aquifers, which can be classified as confined (having an impermeable rock layer above) or unconfined (having a permeable layer above).
• The Cape Flats Aquifer in Cape Town is characterized by flat land and sandy soils, which makes borehole drilling easy but increases the risk of contamination due to high permeability.
• Groundwater in South Africa is estimated to total approximately 235.5 billion m3, which is described as being equivalent to 10 Gariep dams.
• The sectoral use of groundwater in South Africa is dominated by crop irrigation, which accounts for 78% of use, followed by domestic uses (7%), stock watering (6%), mining (5%), and industrial uses (4%).
• The two primary threats to groundwater resources are over-extraction (overutilisation) and contamination. Contamination sources include industrial waste, municipal waste, leaky sewage pipes, and agricultural chemicals such as fertilisers and insecticides.
• Freshwater represents a very small fraction of Earth's total water; if all Earth's water were in a 19-litre bucket, freshwater would be only 2 cups, with the majority of that frozen in polar ice caps and only a tiny fraction (1 teaspoon) available as surface water for drinking.
• The campaign includes a poster competition for Grade 4-7 learners running from 7 June to 6 August 2021, with prizes including educational tablets for students, an interactive whiteboard for the teacher, and a R10,000 cash prize for the winning school.

APA

WWF South Africa (2021). Groundwater Awareness Campaign. https://wwfafrica.awsassets.panda.org/downloads/2_annexure_2_appendix_a_lesson_material.pdf

Chicago

WWF South Africa. Groundwater Awareness Campaign. 2021. https://wwfafrica.awsassets.panda.org/downloads/2_annexure_2_appendix_a_lesson_material.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=WWF South Africa |title=Groundwater Awareness Campaign |date=May 2021 |url=https://wwfafrica.awsassets.panda.org/downloads/2_annexure_2_appendix_a_lesson_material.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{wwfsouthafrica2021groundwater, author = {{WWF South Africa}}, title = {{Groundwater Awareness Campaign}}, institution = {WWF South Africa}, year = {2021}, month = may, url = {https://wwfafrica.awsassets.panda.org/downloads/2_annexure_2_appendix_a_lesson_material.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }