Strategic Water Sources key to water security in South Africa: Endangered Wildlife Trust
Conservation and restoration of South Africa’s Strategic Water Source Areas (SWSAs) will improve water security for the country, a report by the Endangered Wildlife Trust has shown.
The report, Assessing opportunities for protected area expansion and ecosystem restoration in South Africa’s Strategic Water Resource Areas, adds that it will also contribute significantly to preventing the loss of threatened species and habitats, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and improving climate change adaptation for the surrounding and downstream communities.
In a month in which wetlands are being celebrated, attention is focused on wetlands and human wellbeing. This is at a time when worldwide attention is on the safety of water supplies, the conservation of biodiversity in the face of climate change and the ability of communities to mitigate and adapt to the effects of a changing environment.
The report shows that South Africa’s Strategic Water Source Areas make up just over 8.2% (10,020,780 ha) of the country’s terrestrial land surface area.
It illustrates and strategically prioritises what the actual protected area expansion opportunities are across various landscapes towards contributing to the Global Biodiversity Framework targets, specifically the 30×30 target.
At present, only around 9.28% of South Africa’s land surface is formally protected, meaning that we effectively need to more than triple this to reach the ambitious 30% target by 2030. The protection of SWSAs is critical for securing not only water security in South Africa but also the extensive biodiversity that exists within these areas.
South Africa already has a well-established warming trend. Even under more conservative emission scenarios, it is predicted that by mid-century the South African coast will warm by 1–2°C and the interior by around 2–3°C.
As a water-stressed country that already uses its existing freshwater resources intensively, the prediction of a more arid West Coast, which includes several critical water catchments critical for human well-being, is fast becoming a reality. The West Coast also hosts several highly threatened freshwater species, and freshwater biodiversity is declining at twice the rate of that in the oceans or forests. In fact, nearly one-third of freshwater fish face extinction globally, including many South African species – the most threatened animal group in South Africa.
Strategic Water Source Areas (SWSAs) are areas of land that supply a disproportionate amount annual surface water runoff in relation to their size. Within South Africa, they are mainly located along the southern and eastern regions of the country. They are vital for water and food security and provide the water used to generate hydroelectricity. The surface water SWSAs produce just over 50% of the mean annual runoff from less than 10% of the land area. Only 11% of the surface-water SWSAs (about 18.2 million ha) are under some level of formal protection in terms of the National Environmental Management: Protected Areas Act.
The low proportion of SWSAs that fall within protected areas and the very uneven distribution of those protected areas make them highly vulnerable to unwise development and the adverse effects of existing activities.
This situation is even more alarming when future pressures on water resources are considered, given that the demand for water is predicted to escalate exponentially. Many parts of the country are expected to become drier due to climate change, threatening our water supplies.
The report, funded by the Federal Republic of Germany, finds several SWSAs suitable for further protected area expansion and restoration work. Those areas that are poorly protected, but still have large contiguous natural areas, are the Amathole, Eastern Cape Drakensberg (already earmarked for the new Grasslands National Park), Enkangala Grasslands, Mfolozi Headwaters, Northern Drakensberg, Southern Drakensberg, Soutpansberg, Waterberg and Tsitsikamma. SWSAs that have large amounts of recoverable areas (more than 20,000 hectares) are the Eastern Cape Drakensberg, Enkangala Grasslands, Northern and Southern Drakensberg, and Soutpansberg.
As a water-stressed country, climate change poses a further threat to water supplies. The research has found that ecosystems, such as wetlands, are not protected, there will be knock-on effects downstream, especially in terms of a reduction in water quality, loss of habitat for fish and other biodiversity and impaired ecosystem functioning.
South Africa thus needs targeted conservation and restoration action in all our SWSAs to conserve biodiversity, improve water security, and reduce the impacts of climate change simultaneously. Following the results of the report which was developed through the support of the Federal Republic of Germany’s Embassy in South Africa, we have been approved for funding from the International Climate Initiative (IKI) as well as from the Whitley Fund for Nature. IKI is an important part of the German government’s international climate finance commitment. With these grants we will tackle targeted protected area expansion and restoration across the Amathole, Northern and Southern Drakensberg, Soutpansberg, Waterberg and Wolkberg SWSAs over the next five years.
The EWT’s appeal to you is to continue using water sparingly.
You can also get involved by donating to support out critical conservation work in the remaining SWSA’s in South Africa, and Africa.