GCR Water Security Perspective

The water crisis experienced in Cape Town between 2016 and 2018, as well as other areas in South Africa, has raised questions around water security in the Gauteng City-Region. Cape Town has shown how quickly a large metropolitan area can enter a crisis if it is not prepared. As the GCR's population and economy continue to grow there is a need to continually review whether the region is water secure enough to sustain its people and ongoing prosperity.

In light of this the Office of the Premier in the Gauteng Provincial Government asked the GCRO to assist it in developing a Water Security Perspective for the Gauteng City-Region. The aim was to develop a perspective that frames the water challenges facing Gauteng, and the ways in which these challenges can be addressed. This would then lay a foundation for more detailed water security planning. GCRO worked with a team of water specialists including Pegasys Consulting and Mike Muller from the Wits School of Governance. The Water Security Perspective was completed in July 2018. Minor adjustments have been made to the version downloadable here, dated August 2019.

Gauteng can only claim to be water secure when all its residents have affordable access to safe and reliable water supplies, are not at risk of flooding, and have access to safely managed and dignified sanitation services. This will not be achieved by action in the water sector alone. The Water Security Perspective for the GCR outlines the region's sources of water and the hydrological systems on which these depend. It considers how the region's wastewaters are managed and the implications this has for adjacent parts of the country. It then considers the performance of the key institutions that supply, purify and distribute our water, and identifies some of the emerging challenges that face the GCR if it is to achieve, and then sustain, water security.

See GCRO's project page on ongoing water security research, here.