44 The Future of Water in African Cities
Box 2.1
Integration of Water Resource Management, Water Supply, and Sanitation: Polokwane, South Africa Polokwane, the capital of Limpopo province in South Africa, was awarded Blue Drop status by the National Department of Water Affairs (DWAF) because of its recent achievements in water resource management and water supply management. Blue Drop Certification is an incentive-based regulation introduced by DWAF in 2008 to encourage excellent management of drinking water. Polokwane’s reward is significant, considering that the city’s dry climate requires water imports, and that rapid population growth and the demands of an expanding local economy have placed severe stresses on the system. Water sources in the region are precarious: natural inflows are low and dams were not planned for the emerging demand. The Polokwane Municipality Water Safety Plan includes safety plans for catchment areas, treatment plants, and the distribution system. Over the past few years, the strategy has emphasized building capacity to strengthen the coordination of water use and supply; a drought management plan, including increased use of recycled wastewater; demand management by expanding water metering and volumetric monitoring programs, including the introduction of prepaid metering as well as a pressure reduction system to reduce water leakage; and a price structure in which the price of water increases with increased water usage, rewarding lower usage while also ensuring basic access for poorer households. Challenges remain substantial, but the combination of national incentives and technical support, as well as concerted efforts to link water resource management and water supply, have made considerable progress possible. Source: Bloch, 2012.
The Urban Water Cycle Is Closely Linked to the Watershed The city depends on and impacts the wider watershed. Integrated water resources management applied to the watershed should consider urban issues. At the catchment scale, upstream changes in land use patterns and deforestation might alter the local hydrological cycle, necessitating watershed protection plans and water allocation strategies (Anderson and Iyaduri, 2003; Gleick et al., 2011). Measures at this scale might be crucial for a city’s access to sufficient water of adequate quality as well as for flood protection. Conversely, the city impacts downstream users