The potential role of groundwater in supporting the resilience of human societies is garnering increased attention in the context of climate change. Much of this attention focuses on the resilience of the groundwater resource itself. Less attention has been given to the way that groundwater is used by society and how this may influence human-centred resilience outcomes, particularly in urban settings.

Sand mining in southern Africa is on the rise, fuelled largely by rapid urbanisation. This creates a range of societal and biophysical challenges and supports livelihoods in regions with high unemployment. Relevant scientific studies are scarce. This study explores the impacts of sand mining from ephemeral rivers on Botswana, South Africa and Mozambique communities through field visits, interviews, modelling, remote sensing and legislative analysis. What was expected to be a hydrogeology project focussing on water resources identified a broader range of issues that should be considered.

Top-down governance systems are not well designed to secure the protection, use and management of groundwater at the local level and, on the contrary, perpetuate ‘wicked’ problems of poor groundwater management and protection. Citizen science promises solutions to these ‘wicked’ problems. We present findings from a project in the Hout Catchment, Limpopo, where citizen scientists monitor water in wells in remote rural settings.

The Geneva aquifer is internationally recognized for its transboundary resource management agreement between Switzerland and France, described as the first groundwater management agreement in the world. Signed in 1978 and renewed in 2008, this agreement on managing a shared underground resource has long been an example for establishing other agreements worldwide, particularly by UNESCO and its hydrological program via the TBA commission of the IAH.

When the South African Government in 1998 re-demarcated its 283 municipalities in such a manner that they now completely cover the country in a “wall-to-wall” manner (Section 21), their main focus was on facilitation of effective and sustainable developmental municipal management; in other words, the improvement of basic municipal services such as formalised municipal basic services (for example, safe potable water, effective refuse removal and environmental health) to all the residents of the new geographical areas consisting o

The paper provides an outline of the recently published National Groundwater Strategy and of the approach to its implementation. According to the National Water Resource Strategy, development of groundwater resources will be crucial for sustaining water security in the light of increasing water scarcity in South Africa.

The terms 'Management' and 'Governance' are used interchangeably when referring to groundwater such as policy, protection, operations, financial systems and infrastructure. Governance and management are not separate scales of action, but different processes. Both processes can take place together at local, regional, national or global scales. (Seward 2015). The influences from the different levels of government are also linked. Governance and management can in most case not be split into two blocks and handled separately.

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’.