A right to water

South Africa has been a pioneer in many ways. In 1996, South Africa’s new post-apartheid government married social equity with ecological rights. The constitution states: ‘Everyone has the right to have access to sufficient food and water.’ This right to water in principle guarantees conservation of the reserves for use by all people in the country. In practice, what this means policy-wise has been in constant evolution. Most recently, this right was legally defined as a guarantee of 25 liters a day to each person for free. In a country already scarce in water availability, this is a step in the right direction. In principle, it ensures that the people who are the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change are protected. 

In a previous post, I mentioned that a study has shown that when we run climate change models in conjunction with models on population and economic output projection, population and economic increases have a greater impact on the availability of water in the Zambezi river basin. With a guarantee of meeting the increasing population’s water demand, South Africa is dealing with a water crisis. South Africa has worked through this by establishing complete transparency about the crisis and involving people at the grassroots level in water conservation. In April 2018, when Cape Town hit Day Zero, the day people would have zero water level left, it seems the government had prepared itself adequately. Policies had been enacted that levied high tariffs on people consuming high levels of water. Using water for swimming pools and maintaining lawns was banned. Water for irrigation was limited. The water affairs department released weekly updates on the water level of the city’s reservoirs. People worked together to conserve water to ensure nobody in the city was left without access to any water. The crisis was averted. 

Posters like these were used in several campaigns.

This strategy worked wonderfully in times of short-term crisis. But climate change is bringing new realities that are here to stay. Conservative projections show at least a 20% decrease in precipitation by 2080. The Southern Africa region experiences some of the highest variability in the year-to-year rainfall yield in the world. While the factor is lower in variability within a year, local variability is high. This has been a cause for disruption in crop patterns and crop yield. South Africa’s dependency on agriculture is lower than that of other countries in the region, crop variety is diverse and only 10% of the working population is involved in agriculture. The impact of water scarcity on power generation is higher. South Africa draws nearly 10% of its electricity demand from hydroelectric dams. The rest of the 90% is drawn from coal power plants which require high amounts of water for cooling. Even though South Africa does not heavily depend on the agricultural sectors, food disruptions in crop yield in the region will hit food availability in South Africa. This will affect in lower quantity and quality of imports. In addition, studies show positive temperature change in the future; the temperature had already increased by 2% in a study in 2013. 

In light of these impacts, I will look deeper into how people perceive these impacts of climate change. I will delve into what the narrative between different actors like the farmers, the government, the indigenous groups looks like.

References:

1. Takacs, David. "South Africa and the human right to water: Equity, ecology, and the public trust doctrine." Berkeley J. Int'l L. 34 (2016): 55.
2. Friedrich, E., S. Pillay, and C. A. Buckley. "Carbon footprint analysis for increasing water supply and sanitation in South Africa: a case study." Journal of Cleaner Production 17.1 (2009): 1-12.
3. Friedrich, E., S. Pillay, and C. A. Buckley. "Carbon footprint analysis for increasing water supply and sanitation in South Africa: a case study." Journal of Cleaner Production 17.1 (2009): 1-12.