South Africa urgently needs a well-funded institute to research water demand management.
This is the view of Pieter Pansegrouw, professor of civil engineering at Port Elizabeth’s Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, who wrote on the topic in the latest issue of Farmer’s Weekly.
”Without proper research, our water supplies could run out soon,” he said.
”This is why academic research into water-demand management is so absolutely necessary.”
Pansegrouw singled out agriculture, local government and the electrical power sector as needing attention.
On agriculture, he wrote: ”In Israel, harvesting rainwater by diverting runoff from 100ha catchments to intensively cultivated plots of 1ha has increased sorghum production by five tons per hectare.”
He said more sophisticated water sources — cloud seeding, desalination of seawater and purification of sewage — offered additional opportunities.
Local authorities could subsidise water-saving household fittings and introduce rising block tariffs that reflect on actual scarcity of water in their areas, Pansegrouw added.
”Apparently they do not grasp the essence of steep rising blocks that subsidise water heavily for water-conscious individuals and small water users, but penalise water wasters and polluters severely.
”City and town dwellers will not save water before households are fined at least R500 a month if they exceed 40 kilolitres a month, nor will they make any effort to save water before they are charged at least R1000 for exceeding 50 kilolitres.
”Similarly, water users will not repair water leakages before they are punished for negligence. Water leakages should no longer be tolerated.”
On electrical power generation, Pansegrouw wrote that South Africa needed to use its abundant solar, wind and tidal energy more vigorously.
These, he stressed, were far more environmentally friendly than coal-fired power stations — and did not use water.
”The water-use co-efficiency of South African industry is only about 55 percent.
”This means that an astronomical 45 litres out of 100 litres allocated to this sector are wasted.”
He also said more scrutiny was needed in water use at mines. – Sapa