Navigating the ins and outs of legal water use can be a confusing exercise. Here, Johan Enslin and SJ Jansen van Rensburg, directors of Integrated Water Use License Application Management, a company that specialises in the management of water-use licence applications, explain the South African government's complicated water-use regulations.
The legal use of water in South Africa starts with the National Water Act (No. 36 of 1998). Since this is a water-scarce country, every citizen has a moral and legal obligation to protect its water resources.
The purpose of the National Water Act (NWA) is to ensure that the country's water resources are protected, used, developed, conserved, managed and controlled in ways that take into account the following factors, among others:
• Meeting the basic • Promoting equitable access to water; • Redressing the results of past racial and gender discrimination; • Promoting the efficient, sustainable and beneficial use of water in the interest of the public; • Facilitating social and economic development; • Providing for the growing demand for water use; • Protecting aquatic and associated ecosystems and their biological diversity; • Reducing and preventing the pollution and degradation of water resources; • Meeting international obligations; • Promoting dam safety; and • Managing floods and droughts.
