Climate change is adding further layers of complexity to the already existing challenges of providing sustainable water resources and sanitation in South Africa, says Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) general water resources management deputy director-general Deborah Mochotlhi.

The DWS, mandated to provide sustainable water and sanitation services for current and future generations, is, however, making active strides, developing adaptation measures, updating policies and enhancing collaboration to mitigate the impacts, she told delegates at a high-level, three-sector climate adaptation readiness in South Africa’s water value chain workshop hosted by the Presidential Climate Commission (PCC) and the DWS on Tuesday.

The workshop aimed to address South Africa's critical need for climate adaptation readiness in the water sector as part of the country's broader Just Transition strategy.

“As the custodian of water resources and responsible for ensuring current and future water security, the department is at the forefront of both understanding the risks posed by climate change and initiating the necessary adaptation and mitigation responses.”

South Africa, along with many parts of the world, is experiencing increasingly frequent, and intense, extreme weather events that have had devastating effects on lives, livelihoods, infrastructure and local economies.

The effects of these weather extremes include flooding, landslides, droughts and heat waves, which exacerbate the challenges of the provision of appropriate good quality water and sanitation services, she explained, noting that the accumulating body of evidence from science suggested that some of these events were attributable to climate change.

“This is a discussion we have been having for a long time. It has become much more intense recently, because the vagaries of climate change have become so stark that you cannot ignore it anymore,” said South African PCC climate adaptation lead and World Bank senior adviser Dhesigen Naidoo.

“We are sitting in a climate change world [that], in a way, we were avoiding acknowledging just 10 years ago. Ten years ago, the dominant narrative by far, was plus 1.5 ^oC [temperature increase] by 2100, and we believed that.”

However, audited numbers for 2023 show that global temperatures were 1.48 ^oC above preindustrial levels already, he said, adding that carbon emissions were not reducing in any substantial way.

“The impact of extreme weather is incredibly stark. I mean these storm surges, flood events, drought events, wildfire events, sea level rise and sea acidification is just absolutely in your face. Now we have barrelling trains of cyclones in our part of the world, the same with hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico and around the world.”

He further highlighted that the economic impacts, impacts on the social tapestry, were equally stark.

“We cannot avoid that,” he continued, noting the critical need to be catalytic in what action was taken.

“Today is about operationalising the much-needed coordinated response by linking science to action, as reflected in the Water Sector Climate Change Strategy, seeking indicators as to how this is to be implemented throughout the water value chain and the much-needed cooperative governance and intergovernmental and social partners,” Mochotlhi said.

In line with this, the DWS included the various actions of the climate change programme in the department’s Mid-term Strategic Framework, which was being positioned for adoption in other water sector players’ business plans.

“We are, thus, making active strides to mainstream climate change in the water sector. In this regard, we are currently developing adaptation measures for two water management areas, which are Vaal Orange and the Limpopo Olifants.”

The adaptation measures are based on the climate change risk and vulnerability assessments that were undertaken for these water management areas in the department’s previous annual performance plans.

“Similarly, the climate change adaptation measures must be mainstreamed into water services authorities’ business plans. We are also working with other sectors, like agriculture, for instance, on improving water use efficiency as part of adaptation and building resilience,” Mochotlhi said.

As part of the mainstreaming of climate change adaptation measures, the DWS undertook risk and vulnerability assessments, and capacity building for catchment management agencies and water services authorities as well as municipalities’ water sector departments and nongovernmental organisations.

The DWS also reviewed and updated its 2014 National Climate Change Response Strategy for the water and sanitation sector.

“The pillars of our strategy are improved collaborative governance; investment in climate resilient infrastructure; research, information and knowledge management; water sector and sanitation management; and net zero carbon for water and sanitation.”

The strategies are aligned with the Climate Change Act, which seeks to ensure the readiness and responsiveness of the sector to climate change, and the DWS is working with various departments, including the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, to develop targets for water and sanitation, as required by section one of the Climate Change Act on the development of sectoral emission targets.

“We are committed to the coordination and integration of climate change in the water and sanitation sector. Let us start by appreciating the challenges posed by climate change to the water sector, take account and use the supportive legislative framework, reach out to all our stakeholders, identify all the relevant actions required in the water sector and implement this with speed and agency. The time is now,” Mochotlhi concluded.

Guided by South Africa’s Just Transition Framework, the PCC is undertaking a study on adaptation readiness in the critical sectors focusing on the water value chain, the agriculture sector and the built environment to establish what needs to be put in place to accelerate adaptation readiness and to agree on transformative, climate-resilient development pathways.

The workshop centred on the findings of a draft report developed to guide discussions and stakeholder collaboration on climate resilience indicators, cooperative governance, climate finance, capacity building and social equity in support of the DWS’s ongoing update of the National Climate Change Response Strategy for the water and sanitation sector.