Simple – Do or Eliminate by Alheit du Toit
August 2, 2021
The Power of Wind – by Logan Minnaar
August 25, 2021
Did you know that Invasive Alien Plants (IAP) such as the Eucalyptus species (Gum Trees) consume an amount of at least as 200 liters of water in a single day? Which has a negative impact on water resources on your property or areas surrounding your property. To mitigate this, it is important that landowners and land-users to avoid growing them near any water resources such as wetlands and rivers. Not only is it important that we monitor our IAP, but we need to ensure that our personal water usage (such as irrigation) is in line with requirements. Water is a precious and finite resource which means we all have a responsibility to ensure that we manage our water sources in such a way to prevent any unnecessary loss of water and or contamination to these water sources.
All water users are governed by the National Water Act 36 of 1998 (NWA) to ensure the sustainable management of water resources in South Africa. The term “water use” refers to a specific water-related activity that is regulated by legislation. We as landowners or land-users have an obligation to ensure that we manage the water on our properties effectively and efficiently. We will from here on venture into how the NWA effects all landowners /land-users, and what we can implemented to ensure that we are in line with regulations.
Properties which take water from a water resource and store it need to ensure that they have completed a Water Use License Authorization (WULA) – “water license”, which is an authorization that is issued by the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) according to Section 21 of the NWA. According to Section 21(a) which covers the taking of significant volumes of water for irrigation from water resources such as rivers, dams, irrigation canals, boreholes/aquifers, wetlands, or lakes. Landowners should be able to confirm the total volumes of water the property is legally allowed to abstract from a water source in writing. This could be determined by proof of documents from the DWS, relevant Catchment Management Agency (CMA), local Water User Association (WUA) or Irrigation Board (IB). These records will be used to ensure that the property does not exceed its registered allocation figures.
How can we ensure that we do not exceed these figures? There are numerous ways such as:
- Implementing effective irrigation systems,
- Monitoring water usage (will be covered later),
- Applying mulch to reduce loss of water,
- Monitoring irrigation systems for leakages,
- Maintaining irrigation infrastructure,
- Following and interpreting weather predictions.
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