Economic Benefit of Ground Water Protection Zoning in South Africa

The South Africa government is currently considering a policy to implement aquifer protection zoning to protect drinking water resources. Many people in South Africa are reliant on groundwater as a sole source of water, with almost two thirds of South Africa’s population depending on groundwater for their domestic water needs. The widespread and highly localised groundwater occurrence and use in South Africa makes it physically and economically impossible to protect all groundwater resources to the same degree. This paper covers the economic benefit of implementing protection zoning, using a case study where 5 people died near Delmas, Mpumalanga in 2005. Typhoid and diarrhoea caused a month long health crises due to contaminated borehole water. A total of 3 000 people were diagnosed with diarrhoea, 561 with typhoid infections and 5 deaths occurred according to official figures. The emergency cost incurred to solve the typhoid and diarrhoea outbreak included medical cost, human resources and the trucking in of clean water. The direct investment cost of the outbreak totals R3.2 million without consideration of the loss of income for the sick and deaths. When this cost is considered for the 5 official deaths the economic cost of the contamination event exceeds R9 million (about US $1 500 000). Protection zones are however still not applied in South Africa, despite recognition of the desirability. This may be due to a number of factors, including the lack of sufficiently detailed information regarding the hydrogeological environments, or existing land uses that impede enforcement of such a concept. Furthermore, poverty, uncertain tenure and limited capacity to provide compensation packages suggests that such approaches may be difficult to implement particularly in a developing country.