Large scale water transfer scheme - South Africa

Challenge and objectives
1. water resources are, scarce and extremely limited
2. evaporation is high, no truly large rivers exist
  1. Zambezi River, is the closest large river to South Africa.
3. poorly endowed with groundwater
  1. Four of South Africa’s main rivers are shared with other countries, which drain about 60% of the country’s land area
4. The use of water is dominated by irrigation
5. especially vulnerable to changes in water availability
Response
1. The National Water Act gives highest priority to water
  1. water is allocated by public authorities and by river basin to ensure that the greatest overall social and economic benefits are achieved.
2. Water resources through the country have been linked through inter-catchment transfers
  1. thereby reducing the potential risks of failure through the combined utilization of resources
3. move some of the water intensive and low water efficient production to countries with more better climate and soils.
possible solutions
1. Demand side measures to increase water availability
2. Re-allocation of water
3. construction of new dams and related infrastructure
how the growth in water requirements can be met in future
1. bring new interventions on line to meet the growth in water requirements
  1. offer the lowest cost options
2. Cape Town
  1. being more remote from large rivers
    1. not having the same benefits of scale of the Johannesburg/Gauteng area

Resource summary

	Created by liberty Devine over 6 years ago