Systemic and Structural Challenges to Sustainable Water Management in South Africa

South Africa is a water-scarce country, a challenge which has been exacerbated by reduced precipitation and high levels of evaporation. Despite this state of affairs, water use and consumption has increased three folds in the past 25 years and this is projected to continue increasing in the next 50 years. As a response to the current and projected water crisis, South Africa, has developed and started implementing progressive water resource policies and strategies to optimise its water resources. Post-independence in 1994, the government introduced the National Environmental Management Act of 1998, Water Service Act 108 of 1997, National Water Act (NWA) 36 of 1998 and National Water Resource Strategy 2004 (1), 2013 (2), 2020 (3), and numerous other strategies to improve the management of water resource. While some of these policies and strategies have achieved significant successes, a majority of them have failed to address the structural and systemic challenges of sustainably managing water resources in the country. This paper, using data obtained through an empirical investigation, presents and discusses systemic and structural processes and mechanism which hamper the sustainable management of water resources for socio-economic and national development. A key point of discussion for this paper revolves around the silo approach used in the management of water resources in South Africa which give rise to massive fragmentations in the policy framework. It is, thus, recommended that for South Africa, to achieve some of the sustainable development targets, there is an urgent need for the country to adopt and implement principles of water resource management embedded in the integrated water resource management (IWRM) framework.