Rainwater harvesting in South Africa: Challenges and opportunities

Water paucity remains a major threat to poverty, hunger alleviation as well as sustainable development. Innovative water technologies such as rainwater harvesting (RWH) have the potential to improve rural water supply and contribute to the provision of the first 6 kl of water consumed monthly. RWH can also be the solution to South Africa food security by increasing water productivity of dryland agriculture and enabling homestead gardening. Although used for decades in South Africa, rainwater harvesting (RWH) is still far from being utilised to its full potential as unresolved challenges prevent its wide scale adoption. The paper presents the challenges and opportunities to the upscaling of RWH in South Africa. Key challenges preventing the nationwide expansion of RWH are the current water related legislations, the lack of finances and the absence of a national umbrella body that coordinates. While opportunities lie in the worth of knowledge gathered by research projects, funded over the last two decades, on the biophysical and socio-economic impacts of RWH.

► We present challenges and opportunities to the upscaling of rainwater harvesting (RWH) in South Africa.
► Challenges are the water related legislations, inadequate financial support and the lack of national coordination.
► Opportunities lie in the government buy-in and the knowledge gathered during over 15 years of RWH research.