Water Wheel March 2021: Wrc50

Abstract

Water Research Commission marks a half-century of RDI excellence South Africa is a dry country and has been throughout modern history. Ingenuity, knowledge and innovation have had to be mainstays of water security from the very beginning. The indigenous inhabitants in the form of the Khoi and San were successful only because they developed smart ways to store and transport water in our largely semi-arid country where only 10% of the land area constitutes the headwaters for more than 50% of all of our scare water resources. After the severe South African droughts of the 1960s with storage capacity in many dams dropping to less than a third, the government implemented widespread water restrictions. The most dramatic restrictions were applied to consumers dependent on the Vaal Dam which, at its lowest, was less than 27% full. A Commission of Enquiry into Water Matters was constituted in 1966 and its report was published in 1970. The report highlighted the important role of water research in the optimum utilisation and management of the country’s water resources..

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