Local Government in Water Services Planning based on Water Resources
AWARD has been running two parallel programmes - Intigrated Catchment Management (Save the Sand) and Village Water Supply (SWELL) - in the bid for equitable allocation of water and sustainable social, environmetal and economic development.
A suite of action-research projects has been carried out under integrated water resources management. Amongst these are the Save the Sand Feasibility study (Pollard et al., 1998). This work provided the basis for understanding water resources and their uses in the Sand River Catchment (SRC). On the other hand, some work has been going on looking at water and livelhoods (Maluleke et al., 2005).
Water services planning requires, amongst other things an understanding of:
- what people's water and livelihood needs are
- what matching infrastrure is required
- the management needs of such infrastructure
- as well as the available water resources
The SWELL Ward 33 work provided water services planners with the understaning of people's water and livelihood needs. The SSP work provided baseline information on the status of water resources and their use in the Sand River Catchment.
The focus now is on clearly establishing the links between water services planning and water resources for local government. The SWELL Programme plans, in partnership with various local and national government institutions, to build upon previous work in the coming five years (2008 – 2012) to:
- Set out a detailed assessment (RIDe framework) for use in planning of:
- Water resources in the Sand River Catchment (SRC) – quality, quantity, demand and use.
- The state of water services infrastructure,
- People’s livelihood context in the catchment, including an articulation of the water needs of the most vulnerable people and households
- Opportunities supplementary sources such as rain water harvesting for multiple use water service (see LoGo WIP for details)
- Involve communities in identifying their priority water needs
- Collectively plan and implement water projects (most of which were developed in 2005/2006)
- Identify capacity requirements for management of water resources and, operation and maintenance of water services programmes
- Develop a monitoring and evaluation programme for sustainability
- Carry out a study on the involvement of Bushbuckridge Local Municipality in water allocation planning, in the Inkomati Catchment Management Agency (ICMA), and
- Carry out a Socio-Economic study as the basis for water allocation at municipal level