Floods hit areas of the Eastern Cape, including Port St Johns on the Wild Coast. Photo: Bantu Holomisa/Twitter
Periodic flooding is South Africa’s new normal, and that means we’re going to have to plan better, as provincial, regional and city authorities.
Climate change is making our weather more erratic, from prolonged droughts in the semi-arid Karoo to floods across vast swathes of the country, particularly towards the east. In just the first six months of this year, flooding has led to many lives lost, livelihoods severely affected – or destroyed – and billions of rands in infrastructure damage.
Water is essential for life and for most economic activities, and when it comes to those economic activities, there are few viable substitutes. It’s non-negotiable: changing how we manage our water infrastructure, where and how we build homes and businesses and how we manage our water resources is critical for South Africa’s social and economic sustainability.
Doing so will benefit all 63 million of us living in South Africa. While it is often the case that the people most affected by climate extremes are the most vulnerable, everyone is being, has been, or will be directly affected by climate change’s damaging effects.
We also have to plan for disasters. South Africa’s flooding incidents have demonstrably increased over the past five to seven years. This is largely attributed to climate change, and inadequate environmental and urban planning.
In the first six months of 2025 there have been flooding incidents across large parts of South Africa that have taken at least 130 lives, left tens of thousands of people homeless and caused tens of millions of rands’ damage to social and economic infrastructure.
Beginning in February and continuing into March, at least 30 people were killed when heavy rains caused floods across KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng, the Free State and the Northern Cape.
In April, heavy rain in the Vaal Dam catchment area pushed water levels to 121% of the dam’s capacity. To manage the overflow, the department of water and sanitation initiated controlled releases, opening up to 10 sluice gates. These releases, combined with ongoing rain, caused extensive downstream flooding along the Vaal River, submerging homes, businesses and agricultural land in towns such as Parys, Potchefstroom and Klerksdorp and leading to the displacement of residents and considerable economic damage.
Then, in June, a powerful cold front brought torrential rain, heavy winds and snow to the Western Cape and Eastern Cape. This led to rivers overflowing, with floodwaters reaching depths of 3m to 4m in some areas, particularly around Mthatha in the Eastern Cape. The death toll from this event alone had exceeded 100 by early July. Thousands of people were displaced. Beyond these major events, localised flooding also affected various parts of Cape Town in April and July, affecting informal settlements and roadways.
These days, we have many digital tools that can help us to plan ahead, potentially saving lives and livelihoods. As an example, in 2022 insurer Santam asked Atana to help it develop a comprehensive view of Ladysmith’s potential flood hazard to help it provide better-tailored cover and reduce risk.
Atana created a comprehensive digital flood model that simulated flood exposure across a 45km2 area. It incorporated various datasets and analysed 11 different scenarios, including dam discharges, peak discharges from nearby catchments and local rainfall, giving Santam the in-depth insight it needed. Work like this could potentially assist a municipality in enhancing its disaster resilience and mitigating risks.
South Africa’s water crisis is significantly exacerbated by ageing infrastructure and a lack of maintenance. This situation is arguably most visible in the deepening water crisis that threatens the economic and social well-being of the country’s economic hub, Johannesburg, where water cuts are a near-daily occurrence that affect human and economic health.
We need the relevant public and private entities to work together to plan better. An example of how such integrated planning has effectively protected people and infrastructure against flooding is the Netherlands’ Room for the River programme.
The programme, launched in 2007 to address the escalating risk of flooding across the Netherlands, aimed to intelligently manage higher water levels in rivers. By implementing a range of strategic measures, from lowering flood plains and creating essential water buffers to relocating levees, deepening side channels and constructing crucial flood bypasses, the programme used natural features to better safeguard the nation.
At its heart, the programme embraced the ingenious principle of restoring the river’s natural flood plain in areas where doing so would cause the least disruption or harm, to protect areas that need to be defended when waters rise. It aimed to ensure the Rhine’s branches could safely manage an impressive discharge capacity of 16 000m3 of water a second by 2015 and to significantly enhance the overall environmental quality of the river region through these safety measures. Another, critical, goal was to permanently secure the additional space rivers will require for higher discharges due to future climate change.
This monumental undertaking comprised more than 30 projects spanning four major rivers – the Rhine, Meuse, Waal, and IJssel – with the programme reaching conclusion in 2022.
A collaborative effort involving 19 partners, including the private sector, provinces, municipalities and regional water authorities, and overseen by the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management, the Room for the River programme is a testament to forward-thinking environmental management and a commitment to national safety and ecological well-being.
Assuming a number of political hurdles could be overcome, aspects of this imaginative, sustainability-focused programme could be used in South Africa to begin lessening, or even preventing, tragedies such as the more than 100 lives lost in the June flooding in the Eastern Cape.
While the problems are daunting, the example of the Netherlands’ Room for the River programme shows that a different, more sustainable path could be possible. This initiative demonstrates that, with strategic foresight, collaboration and a willingness to learn from nature, we can protect people, infrastructure and our economy. By taking inspiration from this successful model and implementing locally appropriate, innovative, technology-driven solutions, South Africa can start to transform this recurring crisis into an opportunity to build a more resilient and secure future for all its citizens.
Karen King is a hydrologist, soil scientist and water stewardship consultant. She is the climate resilience director at Atana and focuses on improving livelihoods through water and soil knowledge.