Breede Catchment Water Stewardship Programme

The Breede Water Stewardship Programme, implemented by WWF-SA in partnership with retailers and agencies, focused on transitioning from on-farm actions to collective catchment-scale stewardship. Key initiatives included the formation of the 'Witzenberg Water Savers' to address urban water pollution in Prince Alfred Hamlet and Nduli, and a collective invasive alien plant clearing project near Wolseley funded by Woolworths. The project also tested the AWS Standard with volunteer farmers, finding that while the 2015–2016 drought drove significant improvements in water-use efficiency, farmers struggled with catchment-scale data and information disclosure. The report advocates for a collaborative extension model and the harmonisation of the AWS Standard with existing agricultural certifications to scale water stewardship across South Africa.

• The project established the 'Witzenberg Water Savers', a volunteer group from Prince Alfred Hamlet and Nduli townships, to address urban water quality issues. Water quality assessments revealed high levels of faecal contamination in the Wabooms River and Nduli storm-water channel caused by uncontrolled grey-water discharge, pump-station overflows during Eskom loadshedding, and inappropriate disposal of items in flush toilets.
• To combat invasive alien plants (IAPs) in the mountainous water-source areas near Wolseley, the project facilitated a collective clearing initiative. This resulted in the creation of a project manager position funded by Woolworths and housed within the Wolseley Water User Association to ensure long-term sustainability and local ownership.
• Evaluations of seven volunteer farms against the AWS Standard between 2013 and 2016 showed steady improvement in Core compliance, rising from initial scores of 21–37% to between 59% and 69% after engagement. Two farms, Lushof and Romansrivier, exceeded 80% Core compliance following the 2015–2016 drought.
• The 2015–2016 drought acted as a catalyst for water-use efficiency, leading farmers to implement survival mechanisms such as mulching, Kaolin sunblock spray to reduce pulse irrigation, and the adaptation of microjets to drip systems ('boomkondoom').
• Farmers consistently struggled to meet specific AWS Core indicators related to the gathering of catchment-scale data, performing cost-benefit analyses of stewardship steps, and the transparency and disclosure of information.
• A water stewardship webtool developed to make the AWS Standard more accessible to farmers saw low uptake from the target audience, with only six of 75 registrations identified as farmers. The report suggests that a personal extension model is more effective than electronic tools for driving adoption in South African agriculture.
• The project successfully integrated a Catchment Management Agency (CMA) as an official collaborator through a Memorandum of Understanding with the Breede-Gouritz CMA, marking the first such partnership of its kind in South Africa.

APA

Schachtschneider, K. (2016). Breede Catchment Water Stewardship Programme. WWF South Africa. http://awsassets.wwf.org.za/downloads/breede_catchment_water_stewardship_programme_summary_report.pdf

Chicago

Schachtschneider, Klaudia. Breede Catchment Water Stewardship Programme. WWF South Africa, 2016. http://awsassets.wwf.org.za/downloads/breede_catchment_water_stewardship_programme_summary_report.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Schachtschneider |first1=Klaudia |title=Breede Catchment Water Stewardship Programme |publisher=WWF South Africa |date=May 2016 |url=http://awsassets.wwf.org.za/downloads/breede_catchment_water_stewardship_programme_summary_report.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{schachtschneider2016breede, author = {Schachtschneider, Klaudia}, title = {{Breede Catchment Water Stewardship Programme}}, institution = {WWF South Africa}, year = {2016}, month = may, url = {http://awsassets.wwf.org.za/downloads/breede_catchment_water_stewardship_programme_summary_report.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }