Diving In

We have spent the past few days diving into the City of Tshwane and their water issues.  There are currently 7 provinces and more areas are being added into the mix which worsens the water management and loss concerns.  It is the third largest metro in the world in terms of land mass and there are over 163 reservoirs and 39 water towers.  We are just starting to understand the enormous landscape we are dealing with.

The team has met with many of the water officials in an attempt to learn about the complex water lifecycle from how water comes into the city (through the river, rain water, purchased from Water Agencies), how it is distributed out to the residents, how waste management and recycling occurs to pump water back into the river.  We also visited an industrial park in Babelegi which houses many factories which produce everything from plastic to Maggi Noodles (which got me personally excited) to steel.  These factories are some of the largest consumers of water so it was important to understand how they are managing water and how losses can be prevented.  As we drove around, we started to realize what a challenge the region is up against - there are old meters or completely missing meters everywhere. The amount of time and money it would take to upgrade everything is dainting.

We are also realizing that to help the water problems, we must look holistically at the entire infrastructure from energy to housing to call centers to finance.  Each day brings more questions than answers.

#ibmcsc