abstraction

With increasing population growth and a subsequently increased demand for food production, the agricultural sector has had to grow and develop continuously despite drought-stricken water resources in recent years. The expansion in this sector requires increasingly efficient water use management and increases in water supplies, which are often met through groundwater utilization. In the past several years the use of groundwater in the Western Cape has increased exponentially and thus has forced the sharing of resources.

Governing groundwater in a way that does not deplete the source of water, nor cause any form of degradation is a global challenge. In South Africa, scholarship shows an extensive history of groundwater governance doctrines. Yet, the country’s groundwater remained a poorly governed resource. A recent regulatory regime change culminated in the National Water Act 36 of 1998 (NWA), which was specifically promulgated to ‘provide for fundamental reform of the law relating to water resources’.