Gauteng has been experiencing frequent and widespread water outages. This is most pronounced in early summer, when water consumption increases with higher temperatures.
There is currently an imbalance in supply and demand which will prevail until the completion of Phase two of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project, the Polihali Dam, scheduled for 2028. Over the past decade, there has also been underinvestment in municipal infrastructure resulting in services decline. There is little redundancy in the system, with no reserve supply capacity, with loadshedding, theft and vandalism all increasing the problem. Municipal water losses (both non-revenue and revenue water) are excessive, accelerating rapid demand growth due to population increase. At the same time many individuals, households and businesses use more water than is necessary during this water shortage, and reducing consumption at all levels is necessary to bring supply and demand back into balance.
The National Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) has been coordinating a response with Rand Water (RW) and the Gauteng municipalities (three metropolitan municipalities – Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni and also the smaller municipalities) since 2022 that aims to ensure more reliable water supply. In June 2024, the multi-stakeholder Platform for a Water Secure Gauteng (PWSG) was established. This draws the public sector, private sector and civil society together in this effort to strengthen water security.
The PWSG initiatives are in development. They will largely centre on improving communication and awareness.
This dashboard is the first of such initiatives. It was developed by the PWSG Dashboard Working Group. The dashboard will enable all sectors to get a common understanding of the state of the water system and progress in strengthening the system. The intention is to host the dashboard on the DWS website and develop it over time.
Links to other sources of information and explanatory notes are included at the end.
We hope you will find this useful, and look forward to feedback on its contents. Any comments or feedback can be sent to: pwsg@dws.gov.za
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