Water Security

In 1977, the UN held a Water Conference in Mar del Parta discussed the

impending threat that the lack of access to sanitary water poses in all countries and the

grave consequences that

could be yielded from this

lack of water security. They

made it their mission to

provide safe drinking water and sanitation for all settlements by 1990. Despite their

efforts, around the world today, nearly 844 million people find it hard to access enough

clean water leaving them with no other option but to drink dirty water. As a result,

diseases spread more easily threatening the public health of those without access to

clean water. In 2015, that statistic was approximately 180 million people fewer at 663

million people and of that population, half of them lived in sub-Saharan Africa. South

Africa is susceptible to the effects that the lack of water security bear because of its

large size and semiarid nature as well as the inadequate funding of new technology to

combat the problem. Since the population of the world was quickly growing and

becoming more urbanized, especially in the developing world, the urgency for action

had increased tremendously.​ ​Water is a source of life to the human race and should be

seen as a basic human right, therefore should be of importance to every human being.

The lack of access to water threatens that very human life we care about and proves

that this is a problem that is imposing on our world today.

 Before the 21st century, challenges such as poverty and food security had been

something that society had somewhat been aware of and therefore urged policies and

programs to be designed to “fix” these problems. However, according to Randolph

Barker, Barbara van

Koppen, and Tushaar Shah

in their article “Water

Scarcity and Poverty” they

provided that little was

known about institutions,

technologies, or policies that

could help achieve water

security. They claim that about 70 percent of the world’s water is used towards irrigation

but allocation of water elsewhere will affect the production of food and possibly

contribute to the lack of food security. This shows that as water becomes harder to

access it is inevitable that conflict will increase between the sectors and that an

approach that will focus on multiple sectors simultaneously will prove to be the most

effective. Instead at the time they had to think of a way to produce more food with less

water but as mentioned before, there was not much research on the topic. At the time, it

was critical that they found new strategies to make water more productive for agriculture

as well as increasing the amount of water security that the poor had especially in

sub-Saharan Africa. South Asia was another area that faced this problem of poor water
security, however, they had the enough funding to develop their own low-cost pumps for

small farmers whereas farmers in Africa had to pay much more.

M​any articles have suggested taking the nexus approach to combat this water

security problem, which refers to the interconnections between different resources and

the analysis that can be made with that information. One of these articles “​The goals

and reality of the water–food–energy security nexus: the case of China and its southern

neighbours,” ​written by

Sebastian Biba, states that

stakeholders have started to

take the nexus approach which

is due to the fact that they are

focusing less on other concepts

such as Integrated Water

Resources Management that

don’t aid the energy sector as

much as it would the water

sector. Sub-Saharan Africa

faces the biggest threat today of living without ample water supply due to the many

countries that are water-stressed, more than any other region. Some researchers say

that there is more than enough freshwater to supply the world, however, out of the

seven billion people on this planet the supply is often distributed unevenly, polluted, or

wasted. ​The resource nexus as described by Biba is the link between resources and the
way that they play a part in the production or management in others. The nexus

approach is the concept that is being considered in order to combat the problem by

attempting to identify the tradeoffs between sectors. As Xiaodong Zhang and Velimir V.

Vesselinov explain, this allows the information from the analysis to inform decision

makers to answer critical question with optimal strategies that will manage water, food,

and energy simultaneously. Although Biba does describe this as a very “immature” or

contentious approach he goes on to say how the process shouldn’t be neglected. As a

problem that has been around for decades these scholars believe that a strategy for

solving this problem should be clarified and while the nexus approach they proposed is

young, it is a step towards

providing a viable solution.

South Africa is the region

that is jeopardized the most by

the lack of water security due to

its geological position which

poses challenges such as water

scarcity, a completely different problem in and of itself. That is not to say that humans

don’t take a part in contributing to this problem. In fact, the poor management of water

by humans is also what researchers believe to have a big hand in water security but it is

unclear which of the two, climate or management, is the main problem (Kamara and

Sally). The lack of water security isn’t the only problem that South Africa is plagued with

because of the interconnections that the resources have.​ Tatjana von Bormann and
Manisha Gulati state in their article “Food, Water, and Energy: Lessons From the South

African Experience” that increasing tensions are placed on freshwater systems because

of demand in areas such as

agriculture, food production,

and energy consumption.

However, policymakers

have yet to recognize the

threat the country faces with

its focus on the demand in

other areas such as

fossil-fuels which contribute

to energy consumption. These fossil-fuels are actually contaminating the water that is

used in these energy making processes, rendering the water unfit for coal-mining

stations (Bormann and Gulati). This is where the nexus approach, accepted by many

scholars, stakeholders, and business people alike comes into play. In situations like

this, nexus resource experts would analyze what is occurring and provide a series of

strategies that are optimal for the given problem. From here stakeholders would then

choose what they feel is the best option and create policies that would reflect good

management in all sectors not just the water sector. Humans play a huge part in the

successful management of water and making it available for those who need it.
 This problem of poor water security can be seen at the political and social level in

South Africa’s history of exclusion and inequality determined on the basis of their race.

They were generally the “last in line” when it came to fresh water resources, combined

with poverty, further restricting their access to natural resource access. Chikozho et al.

state in there article “Articulating the history and major departure points evident in

postapartheid South African national water policy and law,” that lawmakers harnessed

the law and water for the interests of those in economic power and those with land. This

is most likely where the problem of water security stemmed from because it is seen then

that lawmakers had the power to allocate the water where they see fit similar to how we

live now where policies dictate where the freshwater goes. In 1999, Margaret R. Biswas

in her article “Nutrition, Food, and Water Security” says that the political agenda is what

interferes the most with water systems and that the management won’t be efficient or

effective until it is free of political influence. Although before the idea of the nexus, this

supports that strategy because the approach focuses more on the stakeholders

devising new strategies that cooperate with sectors rather than policies and regulations

by the government that create inefficient systems.

 Moreover, the vast size of South Africa does not help when it comes to aiding

those in need of these vital resources because that often means that resources aren’t

going to be divided

evenly among the

population.

Unfortunately, the

size of the region

does not mean that

there is equal land

for gaining

resources and therefore equal distribution of water. For example, in order to grow food,

there must be sustainable land that will grow the crops and to provide electricity for the

country they also must rely on coal mining. When these two areas overlap, the coal

mines will be favored over the crops because it accounts for 86% of the countries

electricity. This is another situation where the nexus approach will be deemed useful

because it is designed to help make optimal decisions that will benefit the country when

it comes to safeguarding these precious resources. Although there is increasing

awareness about this problem, people continue to make their predictions about water

scarcity in upcoming years. In Abdul Kamara and Hilmy Sally’s article that talks about

options that sub-saharan countries have when it comes to security of necessary

resources, they discuss that by 2025 all of South Africa will be in some form affected by

the lack of access to water, showing the clear urgency of water security.
 Water security is a

problem that has been around

for decades and is starting to

see a change. Just decades

ago, there was little to no

research that was done on the

subject of water security and

now there are multiple studies

leaning towards solutions that won’t necessarily solve the problem at stake, however, it

is as step in the right direction. Especially for a place like South Africa, that is already

dry as it is, having proper water management for the people who live there is vital. In

other words, without ease of access to water, lives are at stake because without access

to clean water diseases will spread and livelihoods will decrease. Although it is

impossible to control the geographic location, size, or even weather of the country, one

thing that can be controlled is the management of the water and how it is distributed.

Furthermore, this could potentially affect the smaller countries that depend on South

Africa for resources like water, food, and energy too. Without a change in the way that

policymakers and stakeholders currently view water security it will continue to affect

other sectors and will affect the communities inside the country.
 Works Cited

Biba, Sebastian. "The goals and reality of the water–food–energy security nexus: the

case of China and its southern neighbours." ​Third World Quarterly​ 37.1

(2016): 51-70.

Biswas, Margaret R. "Nutrition, food, and water security." Food and Nutrition Bulletin

20.4 (1999): 454-457.

Foran, Tira. "Node and regime: Interdisciplinary analysis of water-energy-food nexus in

the Mekong region." ​Water Alternatives​ 8.1 (2015).

Kamara, Abdul B., and Hilmy Sally. "Water management options for food security in

South Africa: scenarios, simulations and policy implications."​ Development

Southern Africa 21.2​ (2004): 365-384.

Rodda, Nicola, et al. "Water security in South Africa: perceptions on public expectations

and municipal obligations, governance and water re-use." ​Water SA 42.3

(2016): 456-465.

Rosegrant, Mark W. "Challenges and Policies for Global Water and Food Security."

Economic Review Special​ 5-20 (2016).

von Bormann, Tatjana, and Manisha Gulati. "Food, Water, and Energy: Lessons From

the South African Experience." ​Environment: Science and Policy for

Sustainable Development​ 58.4 (2016): 4-17.

“Water Security.” ​WASH Matters​, washmatters.wateraid.org/water-security.

Zhang, Xiaodong, and Velimir V. Vesselinov. "Integrated modeling approach for optimal

management of water, energy and food security nexus." ​Advances in

Water Resources​ 101 (2017): 1-10.