The Water Research Commission (WRC) is embarking on a five-year strategic national initiative to map out and integrate all available data on South Africa’s water resources.

This will be done through the development of an accounting system for water to link water availability, quality and use with economic activity, as well as strengthen evidence-based water governance.

The National Water Resources Accounting System for South Africa (NWRA-SA) will be designed to make available credible, integrated and up-to-date information, all of which is critical to South Africa’s ability to plan, allocate and safeguard its water resources.

The project, funded by the WRC and led by the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Centre for Water Resources Research until September 2030, aims to provide regularly updated, spatially detailed information to support sustainable water allocation, improved water security planning and the economic valuation of water use.

During the official launch on Monday, which marked the start of the project, WRC research, development and innovation executive professor Stanley Liphadzi said that the project builds on the Water Resources 2012 baseline, linking water availability with sectoral water use and enabling continuous measurement, reporting and analysis of the status, quality and quantity of South Africa’s water resources.

“We are building on that . . .  to ensure that South Africa has reliable data that can be used to quantify our resources and to help us in planning.”

Accredited datasets generated through the project will inform national statistics and policy-relevant decision-making.

Water resource accounting, leveraging integrated data, will strengthen the country’s abilities to monitor and assess water resources and water use, support evidence-based water management, and improve the integration of water resource, environmental and economic statistics.

“This will enable all role players in the water sector to understand the true value of water,” said Department of Water and Sanitation deputy director-general Dr Moloko Matlala, who described the NWRA-SA project as a game changer.

“We are a water-scarce country ranked among the 30 driest countries globally, with an average rainfall of between 40% to 50% less than the world average. Water is a catalyst to economic growth, social development and environmental sustainability. We need this project to ensure that this catalytic nature of water is fully realised.”

Water resources accounting supports the department’s national water resource strategy, as well as the national development agenda, to ensure a water-secure country.

“The NWRA-SA system will allow us to measure water, not only in litres and cubic metres, but also its true value in our economy, in our communities and in our environment,” added Statistics South Africa Statistician General Risenga Maluleke, noting that the launch marked a turning point in South Africa’s journey towards water security.

“Today, we take a decisive step towards the future of water, our most precious resource, its management, and how we manage it, with transparency, with accountability, and indeed, the foresight that is integrated with science policy and accountability. We are not just measuring water. We are valuing it, protecting it and ensuring that it sustains generations to come. It will help us understand whether water is used, how efficiently it is managed and how fairly it is shared among members of society."

Reliable water data and statistics and transparent water accounting were not just luxuries. They were necessities, he said.

University of KwaZulu-Natal Centre for Water Resources Research hydrology researcher Dr Stefanie Schutte defined water resources accounting as a field of water resource management and natural capital accounting.

“It helps to address the need to quantify, describe, understand, compare and communicate the status of water resources systems. It provides a standardised summary of water stocks, flows, fluxes and consumption for a specified spatial and temporal domain.”

The aims of the project include developing and configuring an operational water resources accounting system that provides spatial and temporal consistent summaries of the country's water resources, assisting to promote informed water resource management at a national and global scale.