Water crisis in KwaZulu Natal

I just got back from a field trip where I explored several rural communities that currently do not have access to clean drinking water.

Situated on the hemline of a collection of conserved land such as Phinda Private Game Reserve, Mkuze Game Reserve and the IsiManguliso ( St Lucia) Wetland - now a World Heritage Site, I visited, Makhasa, Mnqobokasi, Kwajobe and Kwangwenya. The first two villages have very recently been hooked up to the Hluhluwe Dam delivery scheme, but the latter two rely on rivers and rain tanks assembled under their roof gutters for water.

If you were an environmental purest - you could argue that their rain harvesting techniques are the most sustainable solution for a continent that is constantly battling water shortages, but as weather patterns change, the rainfall in this area has proved increasingly elusive and drought cycles have increased.

Much of the positive development that has been initiated in these communities is through the support of &Beyond Foundation - that works closely with Phinda Private Reserve. What I love about their development model is that it is community-led, rather than donor dictated and so has spawned real grassroots success by empowering the local leadership.

On assignment for Water For All, I was tasked with finding 5 rural schools in the province that currently do not have access to clean drinking water. This NGO works in several countries across Southern and East Africa and is making a real difference in helping to reduce the number of deaths that occur daily as a result of water borne disease.

Water For All, target mainly schools as beneficiaries, as children are traditionally tasked with collecting water from far away sources - often preventing them from attending school. Water in schools, therefore has a multiple, positive impact in addressing health, education and children rights issues.

In addition, Water For All's new direction embraces renewable technology options that generate no carbon emissions and have no running cost implications to the school or community. The NGO also provides free maintenance of the pump. In short - I'm a huge fan of Water For All, but what concerned me about this last trip were the number of collapsed boreholes in the area that could suggest a serious depletion of ground water.

Ground water quality and quantity can be very area-specific. Drilling for water does not always yield positive results and what I have experienced in recent years is that South Africa's ground water resources are under severe pressure.

Apparently there are all sorts of sophisticated studies that have been commissioned to map all the boreholes across the country and register their abstraction rates. The agricultural industry is responsible for 50% of the country's water resources through irrigation, but this figure is over 5 years old and as the new democratic government has increasingly supplied more of its previously disadvantaged citizens with access to water, either in their residential communities or as emerging farmers, the numbers must have changed.

Before I left for my trip I contacted the regional offices for both the Department of Education and the Department of Water Affairs. Neither could tell me with any kind of certainty which schools used boreholes and how much.

Seems to be yet another case of an a very expensive study sitting in someone's bottom drawer - unread.