Khayelitsha is one of the largest townships in South Africa with a population of 450,000. It is located approximately 20km from Cape Town Central Business District. In the early 2000s, an investigation into leakage levels established that the water lost could almost fill an Olympic sized swimming pool every hour. The main source was identified as household leakage, and in particular poor quality plumbing fittings that have been badly damaged through constant exposure to high pressure.
Overall water demand in the Adelaide metropolitan area is around 200,000,000m3/yr. In a dry year up to 90% of that must be met from the highly stressed River Murray which suffers from increased salinity, over extraction, increasing pollution and dying ecosystems. By 2003 Adelaide experienced extensive water restrictions, a first since a major transfer pipeline was built nearly 50 years earlier.
Zaragoza, located in Northern Spain, launched its Water Saving City project in early1997, two years after a major drought affected 11 million people state-wide. The aim of the project counted on changing wasteful water behavior and increasing efficient use. The goal – reducing 1,000,000m3 of domestic water in one year – was both set and achieved.
Eskom, South Africa’s and the African continents leading electricity supplier, is a government owned utility that provides electricity to almost 95% of all end users in South Africa, and close on 60% of the entire electricity consumption on the African continent. Eskom’s coal fired power stations are steam driven using highly purified water; there is an effort to recover and re-use water due to the high costs of production and water scarcity. Eskom’s Matimba Power Station in Limpopo is an example where direct dry cooling has been implemented to reduce water consumption.
In response to long-term drought, Sydney Water launched the 'Every Drop Counts' initiative. In the past Sydney Water implemented infrastructure upgrades to dams, networks and wastewater treatment facilities. However, it was also realized that the demand for water consumption also needed to be addressed.
Beaufort West, a town situation on the main road between Johannesburg and Cape Town receives a highly variable average rainfall of only 265mm/year and relies heavily on water stored in a single dam. By the end of the 2008/09 rainy season water reserves were very low and in November 2009 the town’s main water source, the Gamka Dam, ran dry.
Yemen is a water scarce country and is reliant on groundwater as its primary source of its water supply, 90% of which is used for agriculture using water intensive irrigation practices. Abstraction from deep aquifers has resulted in rapid decline in its groundwater resources, not only increasing the cost of abstraction but also reducing the country’s ability to meet its current and future needs.
Many of Namibia’s settlements are situated in very arid areas and depend entirely on groundwater for their water supply. Perhaps the most extreme examples are the coastal settlements of Walvis Bay, Swakopmund and Henties Bay which depend on groundwater stored in the coastal aquifers of the Kuiseb, Swakop and Omaruru Rivers. Rapidly growing water demand in the 1990s, exacerbated by a series of very dry years and declining water levels in the Omdel aquifer, the areas required action.
The Lower Vaal River Catchment supplies water to much of South Africa’s industrial and commercial heartland. The 29,181ha irrigation scheme in place is the largest in South Africa, and must reduce pressure on this crucial water source. As one of the first irrigation schemes to be handed over by the Government to the private sector, it faces the challenge of self-sufficiency in a testing environment.
India is the world’s largest sugar consumer and the second largest producer. The livelihoods of almost 35 million people are dependent on sugarcane production, grown on over 4.1 million hectares nationwide. Yet, productivity is highly variable from 40 tonnes per hectare (t/ha) to 269t/ha. The discrepancy is attributed to the fact that sugar cane farmers in the region have little incentive to save water. As a result whilst the annual irrigation requirement is around 1,600mm, the average application of water is up to 4,000mm.
The Segura River is about 350km long and flows from west to east discharging into the Mediterranean on Spain’s east coast. It passes through the entire region of Murcia, which hosts a population over two million yet has the lowest annual rainfall in the European regions. For that same reason its basin experiences an acute supply-demand imbalance. To make matters worse the water that is available is of extremely poor quality, thus further straining the resource’s availability.
Land degradation is a serious problem in many parts of the world, impacting particularly on rain-fed subsistence or semi-subsistence farming areas where the availability and quality of land and water resources is critical to survival. In India there is an urgent need to address natural resource degradation in rainfed areas. The Adarsha Watershed Management Project at Kothapally in Andrha Pradesh, implemented by a consortium of interested parties, is an example of how sustainable watershed programs can be successfully carried out.
Most of the Orange-Senqu Basin – shared by Lesotho, South Africa, Botswana and Namibia – is arid to semi-arid. It is one of the largest basins in southern Africa and also one of the most developed. Irrigation in the region is a major consumer of water using approximately 2.5 billion m3 / year, corresponding to 20% of the virgin mean annual runoff and 54% of total consumptive demand excluding environmental requirements. The sector is often accused of being both wasteful and relatively unproductive.
The Golburn-Murray Irrigation District (GMID) covers 68,000km2 and is Australia’s most extensive irrigation network with water. Parts of the irrigation system were antiquated with inefficiencies in the water supply system resulting in high water use. The North Victoria Irrigation Renewal Project (NVIRP) covers 85% of GMID area, and was established to reduce leakage in the irrigation water supply system and improve the efficiency of on-farm irrigation systems.
Soetmelkvlei Farm is a 183ha owner-managed irrigation operation on the Orange-Riet Irrigation Scheme. Precise irrigation scheduling, defined loosely as the process used by irrigation system managers to determine the correct frequency and duration of watering, is possible here because the Orange-Riet Water User Association operating the Scheme manages a distribution system that allows farmers to place water orders daily. While the thinking of many farmers on the Scheme is focused on minimizing costs, at Soetmelkvlei the philosophy is to maximize yield.
Shelanu Farm is situated on the southern bank of the Orange River from which it abstracts its water supply. All of its 28.7ha are used to grow table grapes that are exported (mainly) to the United Kingdom in November, earlier than other producers, allowing it to command a good selling price. Because UK supermarkets require an audited water footprint for each kg of grapes exported, there is real pressure to minimize the volume of water abstracted.
The City of Jeddah is Saudi Arabia’s largest city and with a population of 3.5 million and an annual rainfall of just 84mm. It is highly water stressed and depends upon desalination for the majority of its water supply. Current demand is 1,200,000m3/day and is forecast to increase to 20,000,000m3/day by 2029.
The Keidebees and Vele Langa Primary Schools in Upington were showing unacceptable levels of leakage. The need to respond was identified during an inspection of plumbing fittings for visual leakage in public buildings in and around the town, and further underlined by an examination of consumption levels and water bills being paid by schools. The focus on primary schools was selected to serve as a cost-effective model for other schools and public buildings.
The Hai Basin is home to over 120 million people and is spread over four provinces and the municipalities of Beijing and Tianjin that, alone, account for some 15% of China’s GDP. Expectedly, water has played a pivotal role in the development of the Basin, which now faces serious water-related problems, including pollution, scarcity, diminishing supplies and flooding. Water availability per capita in the Hai Basin is only 14% of China’s national average and about 4% of the global average.
The Lerma Chapala Basin in Mexico is responsible for over 50% of Mexico’s exports and is home to over 10 million people. Yet, the basin is under extreme pressure from water scarcity with an aggregated annual deficit of up to 1.8 billion m3/year. The main water resource in the basin, groundwater, is already heavily overexploited and with increased activity could pose a significant risk.
Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality (EMM) is the industrial heartland of South Africa, supplying approximately 314,000,000m3/yr to 800,000 households. Unfortunately, metering / monitoring the Municipality’s top consumers had not been a high priority for many years, resulting in many of the existing consumer’s supply meters to either break or become unreliable. Without a realistic sense of consumption, especially to industry, non-revenue water was estimated to be around 50% of the water actually being used.
Rio Tinto’s Argyle Mine is located in the East Kimberley region of Western Australia. The mine consists of an open pit and underground development project, processing plant, two accommodation villages, an airport and ancillary facilities. In 2006, during a proposal to expand the facility, the Argyle Mine identified significant water losses in their storage facility.
Punjab, a state located in the northwest of India, produces 20% of the nation’s wheat, 11% of its rice and 11% of its cotton from only 1.5% of its geographical area. Since 1970, Punjab has seen growth in its agricultural production; however, this growth has been dependent on increasing exploitation of groundwater for irrigation. The over exploitation of groundwater has resulted in a perceived threat to national food security.
Maintenance of water supply networks in many low-income urban areas in South Africa such as in Sebokeng and Evaton have been neglected over 30 years, resulting in serious service delivery problems and water wastage. The combination of low income and high unemployment levels produced a general deterioration of internal plumbing fittings causing high levels of leakage. Before the project, it was estimated that approximately 80% of the water supplied to the area was wasted, representing a water bill of around US$20m annually. Due to the fact that very few consumers pay their bills, this cost had to be absorbed by the utility and municipality.
Emfuleni Local Municipality (ELM) is located in the catchment and experiences annual mean water losses of 44% (36 000 000m3), and in some areas in excess of 80%. Like many other South African municipalities, it doesn’t have the necessary capacity, instruments or resources to reduce its water demand in the integrated Orange-Senqu River System, already under extreme water stress.
Reducing water losses is a priority for Johannesburg Water. It is the biggest user of water from the Vaal River which depends on transfers from the Senqu River in Lesotho. With a massive customer base of nearly four million, an 11,300km water distribution network, 86 reservoirs, 33 water towers, 108 bulk water supply meters and an average daily demand of 1,366 000m3, losses do add up.
The Saving Water Partnership (SWP) is a group of utilities within Seattle & King County formed with the objective of reducing water demands while the economy and population of the region continue to increase. In many ways it was a preemptive strike at reducing the water supply arising from climate change and the predicted high future cost of water.
Hong Kong has limited freshwater resources within its administrative boundaries. Its 7 million residents currently consume 951,000,000m3 of freshwater every year, 80% of which is purchased and conveyed from Guangdong Province in China. Before the 1960s water purchasing agreement, shortages and rationing were very common with many instances when water was supplied for only a few hours every three or four days, posing a significant public health risk.
Singapore has a population of over five million people demanding 1,700,000m3 of water each day. This demand is forecast to double within 50 years, with 70% of that increased demand coming from the non-domestic sector. Although rainfall does average 254mm/yr, Singapore has limited natural water resources due to its small land area and, as a result, has historically relied on imported water.
Flanked on both sides by deserts, Namibia is amongst the most arid countries in the world. Windhoek, its capital, is situated in the central highlands with a mean annual precipitation of 370mm, evaporation of over 3,000mm and 750km from the nearest perennial river. For more than five decades Windhoek has managed to stretch its limited potable water resources through strict water management, including wastewater reclamation and direct potable reuse.
The Las Vegas Valley is extremely arid and is classed as having a subtropical desert climate, with extremely high summer temperatures and high evapotranspiration. Since 2000 the valley has been suffering from a severe and ongoing drought. Most of the water used in the Valley is withdrawn from the Colorado River via Lake Mead, then returned as treated effluent back to the Colorado River.
The Drakenstein Municipality, located in the Western Cape province of South Africa has a total population of 224,240. In 1999, faced with an annual growth in water demand of 3.5% and non-revenue water standing at 33%, it decided to take action to mitigate a potential impeding water crisis.
The Public Utilities Board, Singapore's national water agency, recognized that projected population growth would lead to an increased future water demand. As a result, it developed the ‘Four National Taps’ Strategy meant to diversify the sources of water available. But, securing an adequate supply is only half of the challenge for Singapore; managing demand is of equal importance.
susceptible to drought and climate variability. City West Water (CWW), located in Melbourne, is one of the city’s three retail water businesses, providing a variety of services to business customers. Over 100 of CWW’s large business customers use steam within their processes, a notable water resource.
Between 2000 and 2010 Australia experienced extended periods of drought that increased the strain on water resources. In response to this, the Water Loss Management Programme (WLMP) was jointly initiated between the Local Government Association of New South Wales (NSW) and the Shires Association of NSW, the Water Directorate and the Australian Government through the Water Smart Australia program.
Xstrata Lomas Bayas copper mine is located 120km northeast of the port of Antofagasta, Chile. The mine, producing approximately 75,000 tons of copper each year is located in a desert with an annual rainfall of approximately 1mm. Xstrata’s copper operations use a process called heap leaching where a mildly acidic solution is sprayed over crushed copper ore to leach out the mineral; the process uses a significant proportion of the mine’s total water demand.
The City of Orlando and Orange County, in order comply with a court decision and cease discharge of treated municipal waste into watercourses draining into a lake and its adjacent reserves, co-developed the Conserv II project to upgrade the wastewater treatment systems.
The Middle East Paper Company (MEPCO) is a paper producing company based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia – a city with extremely limited access to natural water resources. The paper producing plant is classed as a water intensive operation and is governed by an operating license granted by the local environment authority. In 2006 the company increased its production capacity from 100,000 tons/year to 250,000 tons/year, and in 2010 this further expanded it to 400,000 tons/year, thereby substantially increasing the demand for raw water.
Durban, located on the eastern coast of South Africa, is one of the country’s fastest-growing cities and its second-largest industrial center. It is an area with high water stress and is expected to become dependent on desalination in future years. The demand for water by the industrial sector presents an additional challenge to the city authorities in meeting the water supply needs of the city and effective management of water resources.
The Essar steel and power plants are located in Gujarat, India. The power plant is a multi-fuel combined-cycle plant using 3,900,000m3 of water per year and generating 515MW of power. The Essar steel facility, the fourth largest in the world, is located adjacent to the power plant and can produce ten million tons of steel per year. Both plants abstract water from the river Tapti and wastewater effluent is discharged into the sea.
Tiruppur is a mid-sized industrial town located in the upper hydrological basin of the Cauvery River. The basin suffers from water scarcity due to erratic seasonal rainfall, limited reservoir capacity and a high demand on the already limited resource. The city is also the hub of India’s textile industry accounting for 80% of national knitwear production and generating over $1 billion of exports per year. The river and groundwater system the industry uses suffers from severe water quality issues as a result of effluent discharges. This in turn has affected the agricultural potential of downstream lands.
Towards the end of 2010, the Western Cape region experienced its worst drought in more than 130 years. In the Mossel Bay area, the level of the Wolvedans Dam dropped significantly threatening the operation of the Nestlé factory, which processes condensed and powdered milk.