South Africa's Water Crisis
In Conversation with Dr. Anthony Turton
Dr. Anthony Turton is a South African scientist and specialist in water resource management who has been raising the alarm about South Africa’s Water Crisis going back as far as when the country ran out of water in 2002. I spoke to him about the nature of the crisis in South Africa, it’s origins and the potential solutions to solve it.
Here is my summary of our conversation.
South Africa’s Water Crisis started to take form at the end of Apartheid when the ANC effectively nationalized the water license. The legislation resulted in a bureaucratic mess, making it difficult for large companies to apply or renew their water licenses.
The SA government did not plan for the rapid rate of urbanization.
SA lacks a proper national strategy on water management, water should be classified as a national security concern. The lack of proper water infrastructure is a series risk for the stability of the South African state.
South Africa effectively ran out of water for industrial purposes in 2002.
With the retrenchment of skilled workers, the SA municipalities do not have the technical expertise to solve the current crisis.
Johannesburg’s storage capacity has gone down to a dangerous level of 19 hours per day.
There aren’t any more catchment areas left for new technologies.
Dr. Turton is an advocate of Desalination Technology as it is currently being implemented in Melbourne and the Middle East. The environmental concerns about desalination is not based on scientific facts. Desalination can potentially revive the economy of many coastal towns.
There is no shortage of expertise or capital to solve the current water crisis, it’s a failure of good governance and a consequence of bad legislation.
The needed money to solve SAs water crisis is around R1 trillion, while that sum sounds high, it isn’t as water acts as a catalyst for economic growth.
We should wee water management through the paradigm of a flux and not a stock.
Please share around the video to raise awareness and please consider making a donation if you want to see more of these conversations.