African Wildlife & Environment Issue 80

CONSERVATION

National Security Implications The national security implications of this startling fact are profound. In effect, it means that the South African economy is fundamentally water constrained, and existing policy, based on the construction of dams and the inter-basin transfer

of population double that which is considered the 'water barrier' beyond which social instability is likely, and then note a 241% increase in demand by 2025, we clearly have a problem in an area that has the highest hydraulic density of population in the country. The answer to the question about whether

poor countries can create endogenous growth in the face of water scarcity as proposed by Barbier and Homer-Dixon (1996), is that it depends on their capacity to firstly recognise that they have a problem, and then create policy reform that enables technology and capital to be deployed as a solution. This is our challenge as a water constrained economy. This is clearly a national security issue, made more manifest considering the widespread social unrest that was experienced in July 2021, where widescale looting paralyzed the country and caused an as yet unquantified number of additional job losses. Seen from this perspective, water is more than merely an environmental issue, when it is understood in the broader context of human population growth and economic development.

Sectoral demand for water from the major river basins in South Africa shows an unsustainable trend, with power generation and urban demands from the Orange and Limpopo, both closed basins, being exceptionally high.

of water, is no longer capable of creating the employment needed to absorb the growing population. In effect then, South Africa will be faced with an increasingly bleak future, manifest as an acceleration in the loss of social cohesion and the internal struggle for survival between marginalized communities competing for a diminishing number of jobs. The relevance of this statement is starkly evident when one looks at projected demands for water, knowing that the resource is already closed in key river basins.Work done at the CSIR has indicated a worrying trend in sectoral demand. When looking at sectoral water demands from the major basins for urban use, we clearly see an unsustainable pattern. However, when we consider that the Limpopo River Basin is already over- allocated by around 120%, with a hydraulic density

Conclusion We need to be thinking more about water as an economic enabler. The hydraulic density of population is a useful indicator for social stability, but also a specific metric that ought to drive policy reform. Soon the environmental community will have to make a series of decisions about where they stand vis-à-vis the use of technology to recover water from waste and remove salt from saline sources like acidic mine water and the ocean. More importantly, from a purely national security perspective, the nexus between water in the environment, human population dynamics, climate change and economic development will become an increasingly defined set of data needed for evidence-based policy reform.

14 | African Wildlife & Environment | Issue 80 (2021)