Water Policy

V. Water Sytems
Contents
1. Introduction
2. Water Equity in Africa
3. Case study: South Africa
4. Regulating Water services
5. Regulating agriculture water
6. Examples (Jordan & Ghana)
7. Financing Water Services

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 1. Introduction
• Safe drinking water (DW) is a human right.
• There are many benefits of getting access to safe DW.
• Good and accessible water quality is the fundamental
indicator of health and well-being of a society and hence,
crucial for the development of a country.
• WHO reported, an estimated 1.1 billion people in the
world drink unsafe water.
• The use of unsafe water and the lack of basic sanitation
are leading to millions of deaths and disabilities every
year.

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Water Equity in Africa
Water equity refers to a just and equitable system of water benefits for all people,
including having communities that are resilient in the face of climate changes.
However, According to the Africa Water Vision 2025, there is a lack of appropriate
policies and programs that consider rural diversity. Small rural communities are
the most vulnerable to water contamination.
• In fast-growing urban regions, water demand and supply modeling is extremely
important. An accurate prediction of water demand plays a crucial role for water
service providers in the planning, design and water utility asset management of
drinking water systems.

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water equity Pillars
Policy maker should put pillars to ensure water equity, for example:
1. Ensure all people have access to clean, safe, affordable water service.
2. Maximize the community and economic benefits of water infrastructure
investment.
3. Foster community resilience in the face of a climate change, conflict or
other threats.

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Case study: South Africa
Analysis of public policies and programmes towards water security in
post-apartheid South Africa
Post-independence strategies focused on short-term solutions.

- Policies and strategies achieved much in terms of water provision to communities

and households. However, they failed to establish a water-conscious country with
sufficient knowledge and expertise in water management.

- Unfair water distribution due to the racial injustices.

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 Continue..
• There is a need for water regulator to ensure coordination between different
government departments, to strengthen weak governance capacity and to make it
independent to attract private equity into the sector and to recover fiscal deficits in
the water sector.
• Role and responsibilities ?

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 Regulating Water services

Why?
- For drinking water, regulation should be used to protect public health
According to WHO
The aim of national drinking-water laws and standards should be to ensure that the consumer enjoys safe
potable water. The nature and form of drinking-water standards and regulations may vary among countries
and regions. There is no single approach that is universally applicable.

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What to regulate?
Urban water pricing (cost recovery, affordability and water conservation):
Efficiency and reliability of a water supply system:
Water quality standards
Climate change: depleting wells , sea water intrusion, etc.

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Water saving devices

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How To regulate
1. Link regulations to the principles (protection of public health, sustainability, SDGs, etc.)
2. Implement regulations that facilitate the assessment, prioritization and management of
possible risks that might face your principles.
3. Design regulations to address all factors that may influence the principles considering
all related stages.
4. Base regulations on good practices and actual case studies.
5. Use a variety of tools to build and ensure compliance with regulations
6. Create realistic, achievable regulations within national, subnational and local contexts
7. Clearly define stakeholder roles and responsibilities in the regulations
8. Design regulations to direct information collection, flow and consequential action
9. Design regulations to be adaptable, to reflect changes in contexts, understanding and
technological innovation.

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 Agricultural water
Crops need water for transpiration and evaporation
(evapotranspiration) / Crop Water Requirement
(CWR).

Water use = CWR + losses

Depending on:
1- Crops,
2- Climatic conditions, and
3- Irrigation method.
1- Different crops have different CWR

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 Can save 40% 2. Irrigation methods
of the used water

Agriculture
water

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 3. Climatic conditions

The same crop has different CWR depending on the climatic conditions.

One ton of wheat requires:

Countries Denmark USA Iran Saudi Arabia
m3/ton 650 2200 3700 6000

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Regulating agricultural water
• Water quality and quantity
• What to cultivate ? and how to irrigate?
• Well discharge (license and monitoring)
Safe Yield (withdrawal)

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 Virtual water
Virtual water is embedded water in a products, services and processes people buy
and use every day.

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Example: water Quota system Jordan

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Example: Ghana

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Financing Water Services
- Infrastructure development (part or all):
- Running costs (Sustainable cost recovery).
- Monitoring
- Renovation to reduce the losses
- Science/innovation:
Move toward sustainable and resilient smart water grids in urban
areas and climate resilient systems

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 Climate Resilient
• Climate Resilient Water Services
Protect the systems from possible climatic risks (floods)
• Climate Resilient Agriculture Services (changing crop patterns, irrigation methods,
and/or energy)

Which is better solar pumps or diesel pumps ?

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 https://ceobs.org/groundwater-depletion-clouds-yemens-solar-energy-revolution/

The spread of solar power have increased groundwater depletion in Yemen

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Discussion
Things to consider in our water policy regarding water systems
• Water quality regulation to protect public health
• Water discharge to protect renewable water resources
• Climate change and its possible risk to protect water systems and socioeconomic
activities
• Efficient water use
• Monitoring

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Conclusions
• Challenges drive the policy
• Principles form the policy
• Regulations should tackle the challenges and be based on the
principles
• Stakeholders are always our key to make the change

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Policy solutions

Develop the policy solutions for your respective water problems

considering
a. Social, economic, and political aspects
b. Technical aspects from an engineering perspective
c. Fundamental normative considerations such as transparency and
accountability
d. Cost-benefit-analysis, impact analysis (if applicable)
e. Design of implementation and evaluation mechanisms, anticipating
any associated problems

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References
• The Africa Water Vision for 2025
• Analysis of public policies and programmes towards water
security in post-apartheid South Africa
• How regulation can be used to protect public health in relation to
drinking-water

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