RIGHTS: Pressure on Southern African States to Manage Water Resources

By James Hall Reprint | | Print |

James Hall

MBABANE, Oct 3 2003 (IPS) - Water wars are unlikely to be fought in Southern Africa, but as the region anxiously awaits the return of summer rains to accompany the new planting season, the current ongoing food security crisis has put new pressure on nations to manage their shared water resources.

“Ironically, the region is well-watered with a network of major rivers. But water usage has to be controlled by treaty between countries, and controlled by water policy within countries, or there won’t be equitable distribution,” hydrologist Samuel Kunene of Swaziland’s Ministry of Natural Resources told IPS.

Within Swaziland itself, one of the main rivers is being harnessed by the Lower Usuthu River Project, which was inspired by a multi-nation exercise in river resource management called the Komati River Accord.

Mozambique, South Africa and Swaziland all use the wide mountainous Komati River, which meanders through all three countries. The nations signed onto the accord when population density was straining the Komati’s historic ability to water both subsistence farmers living along its banks, and major agricultural businesses in forestry and sugar cane and citrus cultivation.

“The Komati has a 11,100-square-kilometre catchments area, which is how we measure river volume. This is a huge resource. But unmanaged, it will disappear. Individuals will pump out what they like, communities will build dams, and people downstream who depend on the water will find they have nothing,” said Kunene.

Mozambique entered the Komati Accord late, only last year, ten years after South Africa and Swaziland had signed on as original partners in 1992. 2002 was also the year South Africa’s Deputy Prime Minister Jacob Zuma and Swaziland’s King Mswati jointly pushed a button to open the Maguga Dam, built by both countries over the Komati.

Directly affecting nearly a half million people, some of whom will benefit from the 83 million cubic metres of irrigation water the dam will provide, the Maguga was Swaziland’s largest public works project.

“Many developing countries are facing a dilemma of balancing the issues of preserving our beautiful ecosystem with the demands made by our people who live in abject poverty,” said Zuma at the opening.

South Africa paid 60 percent of the dam’s R1.1 billion (158 million U.S. dollars) cost, and will receive 60 percent of the dam’s 332 million cubic metres storage capacity.

In a region where water resource management is an increasingly urgent priority, the 870-metre long Maguga Dam is also more efficient and ecologically friendly than earlier dams because of lessons learned from the three regional dams that are larger: the Driekoppies, Vaal and Bloemhof dams, all in South Africa.

The larger dams lose water to evaporation from their storage lakes. The Maguga Dam’s lake was designed to be deep, and has a relatively small surface area in relation to its volume of water. The lake loses less of its stored volume to evaporation than the larger dams, so a smaller area of river had to be flooded.

However, the Komati has been affected by erratic rainfall since its opening. Currently, only 25 percent of storage capacity is filled. This is bad news for South Africa, which experiences varying degrees of water shortages on an annual basis, and Swaziland, where yearly drought is partly blamed for a five-year decline in crop yields.

Downriver, Mozambique is concerned that the economic revival of areas served by the Komati will be postponed by water shortages.

“The situation would be worse if not for the Komati Accord,” a diplomat with the Mozambique Foreign Service told IPS. “That accord was initiated during a time of normal rainfalls. If it were not in place now, when rains are not falling well, everyone would be tapping into the remaining water in a haphazard grab. There would be chaos, and the downstream users in Mozambique would suffer the worst.”

The Lesotho Highlands Water Project was a pioneer in regional water conservation efforts, and boosted economic development in the landlocked country by strengthening ties with its neighbour, the regional economic powerhouse South Africa, which surrounds Lesotho.

Although that water use treaty, which led to the development of a series of dams with hydro electrical generating capacity, was created when the apartheid government still ruled South Africa (as was the Komati Accord, which calls for the construction of five dams in signatory nations), the trans-political need to preserve precious water supplies motivated the parties to put aside other differences.

Such cooperation will ensure better environmental management.

“The river accords signed by these countries commit the countries to enact environmental safeguards. There must not be clearing of forests around the catchments areas, and riverbanks have to be guarded against soil erosion. This will cut back on silt that is washed downstream. Pollution controls have to be enacted to protect the water supply, and indiscriminate dumping into rivers has to be curtailed,” said Alicia Zulu, water use specialist and attorney with a consulting firm that helps draft water use legislation in Southern Africa.

Back in Swaziland, drought has reduced the volume of the Usuthu River just as the irrigation scheme commenced. But rather than lament this bad timing, advocates of water control legislation said the drought is proving their point.

“Water is being shared equitably, between agricultural cooperatives, small landholder farmers and businesses. The value of water use laws really becomes apparent during times of crisis, more so than during times of plenty. Too many wars between neighbours and nations have been fought over water,” said Kunene.