While the world's focus has been on the pandemic, another crisis has been escalating in our country and needs urgent attention.
It is our dwindling water supplies. We need to take action to address our imminent water crisis; time is running out.
In 2020, when SA implemented a hard lockdown due to rising Covid infections, reduced human activities had a visible impact on the environment. The night skies sparkled with stars long forgotten due to years of living with polluted air, and the water in rivers and streams ran clear. This brief period was a stark reminder of how significantly human activity is degrading the environment.
For freshwater resources, the cumulative effects of years of unchecked pollution, ageing infrastructure, poor maintenance, insufficient capital investment and advancing climate change mean that SA is spiralling to a point where fresh water will become a very scarce resource for most of the population.
At best, SA has 10 years to take the necessary actions to prevent a tipping point beyond which water scarcity will become an exponentially bigger threat to the economy and lives of citizens.
According to a report by the 2030 Water Resources Group, in 10 years from now, SA's demand for water will exceed the available supply by 17%. The expected water deficit of 3.8-billion cubic metres is substantially more than the total capacity of the Vaal Dam, which holds 2.6-billion cubic metres
It is therefore critical that all stakeholders - the government, the private sector and civil society - recognise the seriousness of this threat to the economy and put their heads together now to urgently take action to prevent a national disaster.
SA has problems along the entire water supply chain, starting with insufficient rainfall, a high evaporation rate of surface water, escalating demand for water from industry, population growth and, critically, an overwhelmed water infrastructure.
The water quality in our aquatic systems is deteriorating alarmingly because of pollution. Water catchment areas are being impacted by human settlements encroaching on waterways, the dumping of plastics, metals and chemicals, runoff of fertiliser and insecticide from farms, industrial dumping of chemicals and microplastics from factories and industry, and raw sewage from nonfunctioning wastewater treatment plants.
This polluted water from the dams is channelled to water treatment plants that are already overburdened and under-maintained, threatening their ability to meet the capacity demands expected of them from industry and communities.
The pollution burden in the water means additional chemicals and processes are required to produce water that meets water quality standards, pushing up the costs of water treatment.
Similarly, loss of skills and lack of investment in the maintenance of wastewater treatment plants has resulted in raw sewage or poorly treated water being dumped back into rivers, lakes and dams.
Industry and the government must partner to supply the funding, skills and technology to restore water and wastewater treatment plants to their design capacity and add more treatment plants in areas where additional capacity is needed.
From the water treatment plant, the clean water is pumped through pipelines to reservoirs and end-users. Rapid urbanisation, ageing infrastructure and poor maintenance on this distribution network have resulted in multiple pipe bursts being reported around the country. Costly fresh water is lost through these leaks and communities are being affected until the leak is repaired.
Automation technology and know-how are available from industry to monitor and control an entire distribution network system and to identify leaks or other system events and take the necessary actions.
The non-revenue water savings will quickly pay for the capital outlay required for a more robust pipeline network and an automation and monitoring system with early leakage detection technology. Crucially, this investment will unlock at least an additional 30% of water capacity.
The final challenge lies with civil society and industries.
We take water for granted and do not have the mindset in our country that we need to conserve every drop.
Education and legislation need to be part of the strategy to reduce water demand. A wider rollout of rainwater harvesting systems, greywater systems, low-flow taps, toilets and showerheads, and a general attitude change to conserving water, will make a significant impact on reducing water demand.
The infrastructure investment required is a big ask for the government, so private participation is essential. Since industry is expected to need 50%-70% more water globally by 2035, according to World Bank forecasts, it has a crucial stake in this crisis. The private sector has the funding, capacity and skills to help the government; but we are seeing very few public-private partnerships in SA's water services sector.
We need technology that can integrate all of the different processes required for water treatment plants, wastewater treatment plants, desalination plants and the distribution infrastructure.
We need to leverage the power of digitalisation to ensure visibility along the entire chain so that issues can be swiftly addressed. From a central control room, it is possible to monitor the entire water infrastructure, from dams to water treatment plants, along the distribution network, right up to end-user consumption.
While large water projects like these are the long-term solutions that SA needs, there are multiple smaller measures that must be taken immediately. The government must take the lead and partner with industry as well as civil society to jointly address our water challenges.
Our water crisis requires us to act together, urgently. It will not be an overnight fix, neither can it take more than 10 years, but if the government, industry and other stakeholders collaborate now, and we actively start putting in the required money, skills and technology, and changing mindsets, we can ensure a future in which clean and safe water is provided for all citizens of SA.
• Sukraj is MD of the power and automation engineering company ABB for SA and Southern Africa
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