Water Wheel May/June 2020: Groundwater Management

Abstract

South Africa needs to incorporate lessons learnt and develop better mechanisms that will allow for the proper management and use of groundwater systems in their sustainability plans. A case in point is the drought the City of Cape Town has been experiencing over the past few years. Notwithstanding the importance record low rainfall events had on triggering the water crises, the severity of the drought could have been alleviated by good governance. The Eastern Cape has also been affected by the drought with the Coega Development Corporation (CDC) increasing its water conservation efforts in a bid to tackle the water crisis as it reached dire straits in the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro. A number of artesian boreholes were drilled in the CDC area, and will be used as part of the future water supply of the town. Regulatory context The National Water Resource Strategy 2 (NWRS 2) incorporates groundwater in a meaningful way, enabled by the National Groundwater Strategy.

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