web_mondi-water-stewardship-6dc8a5643d043a81.pdf

This fact sheet describes the water stewardship partnership between Mondi and WWF in South Africa, specifically focusing on the uMhlathuze river catchment. It details the role of Strategic Water Source Areas (SWSAs), the establishment of the uMhlathuze Water Stewardship Partnership (uWASP), and various initiatives to improve water governance, monitoring, and resource management to address rising demand and climate change.

• South Africa has 22 Strategic Water Source Areas (SWSAs) that cover 10% of the land but generate over 50% of the country's water resources. These areas support 50% of the population, 70% of irrigated agriculture, and 64% of the national economy, with heavy reliance from the economic areas of Cape Town (98%), eThekwini (98%), and Gauteng (70%).
• The Mondi-WWF partnership focuses on the uMhlathuze river catchment, where Mondi is a major water user due to its plantation forestry in the upper catchment and its mill at Richards Bay in the lower catchment. In 2016, the uMhlathuze Water Stewardship Partnership (uWASP) was established with the National Business Initiative (NBI) and the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) to coordinate multiple stakeholders.
• uWASP and its partners have implemented several water management initiatives, including the 2022 launch of real-time water use monitoring tools called FlowTracker and Inwards Lite. Other achievements include coordinating a multi-stakeholder Alien Invasive Plant (AIP) Strategy, improving dam releases from the Goedetrouw dam, and developing a business plan to merge five irrigation systems into a single uMhlathuze Water Association.
• Based on 2017 Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) data, water allocation in the Mhlathuze catchment is split between agriculture (34%), urban (26%), industrial (25%), and forestry (15%). Water demand is projected to increase due to climate change and population growth; specifically, Richards Bay is expected to require 20 million cubic metres per annum (mcm/a) by 2025, exceeding its licensed requirement.
• The Goedertrouw dam has a storage capacity of 321 million m3 litres, but it suffers from an estimated annual storage capacity decrease of 1.1 million m3 litres due to siltation.

APA

WWF South Africa (n.d.). web_mondi-water-stewardship-6dc8a5643d043a81.pdf. https://wwfafrica.awsassets.panda.org/downloads/web_mondi-water-stewardship.pdf

Chicago

WWF South Africa. web_mondi-water-stewardship-6dc8a5643d043a81.pdf. n.d. https://wwfafrica.awsassets.panda.org/downloads/web_mondi-water-stewardship.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=WWF South Africa |title=web_mondi-water-stewardship-6dc8a5643d043a81.pdf |url=https://wwfafrica.awsassets.panda.org/downloads/web_mondi-water-stewardship.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{wwfsouthafricandwebmondiwaterstewardship6dc8a5643d043a81pdf, author = {{WWF South Africa}}, title = {{web\_mondi-water-stewardship-6dc8a5643d043a81.pdf}}, institution = {WWF South Africa}, url = {https://wwfafrica.awsassets.panda.org/downloads/web_mondi-water-stewardship.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }