Towns run dry as South Africa’s water systems fail.
Image: File
Across KwaZulu-Natal and the rest of South Africa, “Day Zero” is no longer a warning. In towns from Lindley to Ugu, residents are facing prolonged outages, erratic supply and dry taps – even as many major dams remain full.
Households, schools and businesses are coping with broken pipes, failing treatment plants and infrastructure under strain. Queues at water tankers, drilling boreholes and rationing have become part of daily life.
Water management specialist Professor Anthony Turton says the crisis is induced scarcity, not environmental.
“If we take into consideration the total water resource of the country and we factor in the reserve (Basic Human Needs and Ecological Flows) then we ran out of water in 2002. However, at the moment we have a relative abundance because most dams are more than full. We can therefore think of an induced scarcity. This is a localized scarcity caused by institutional failure somewhere along the total supply chain.”
Turton says small towns have been deeply impacted but generally under-reported.
“The fact that the Platform for a Water Secure Gauteng (PWSG) was created is an admission that the national government is aware of the risk in the three metros, Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni and Tshwane, but Durban is actually at higher risk.”
He warns that because the core problem is institutional failure, there is no single silver bullet fix until water management is depoliticised.
“The current approach is to apply inappropriate solutions to misdiagnosed problems. This is profitable and lies at the heart of the business model sustaining the water mafia. They have a vested interest to sabotage the system because their business model is about converting a crisis into a cash flow. This is how the tanker mafia operates.”
Turton points to Cape Town as a blueprint, citing desalination, water recovery from waste and managed aquifer recharge.
“These three platforms are reliable and have been successfully implemented in water-constrained cities like Perth and Melbourne. The technologies are robust and the economics are understood. Cape Town will thrive even as Johannesburg and Durban wither and slowly die. The lessons from Cape Town must be elevated to other metros,” he said.
The South African Local Government Association (SALGA) echoes that there is no single “national Day Zero.” Instead, multiple localised crises are affecting municipalities differently. Factors include drought, infrastructure failures, flood impacts, electricity disruptions and rapid urban growth.
SALGA Acting Chief Officer Lerato Phasha explained: “The Western Cape and Northern Cape face hydrological drought and climate pressures. Gauteng and large metros face infrastructure capacity (mostly due to aged infrastructure), demand growth and system fragility as well timeliness of water resources for bulk supply at the national level. The Eastern Cape experiences a combination of drought, ageing systems and financial strain. And in other provinces this would be delayed recovery from floods like eThekwini April 2022 floods due to poor resilience, recent Limpopo and uMthatha floods.”
She added: “The major challenge is that SALGA has limited data to work with, which makes it difficult to quantify and diagnose the magnitude of the challenge. The shortages are being experienced in almost every province, but the drivers are different. And while not all communities face immediate Day Zero conditions, the ‘system stress’ is widespread.”
Phasha also warned about skills shortages: “The country faces a severe skills shortage including engineers, technologists and specialists in asset management and demand management. Salga continues to advocate for national programmes that rebuild technical capacity in the sector. Again, data on the country’s skills gap in all spheres of government limits the quantifying of the magnitude of this problem with attraction, recruitment and retention.”
Hellen Booysen, director of Irrigation Survey and Design, described the situation in KZN: “The pipelines keep breaking and the municipalities just don’t have the funds to fix them properly. It’s not only the pipes; you need fittings, machinery, labour and the costs just spiral. Some towns have been without water for weeks, even months.”
She said some areas on the South Coast have gone without water continuously for three weeks to two months.
“In some towns, water comes back briefly, only to stop again when a pipe bursts, it’s a continuous problem.”
Amid shortages, residents and businesses have increasingly turned to boreholes.
“Private homes, office blocks, shopping malls, even hotels in big cities like Johannesburg are drilling to secure their own water, so they don’t run dry when people visit or live there.”
Booysen cautioned on costs and risks, saying that last year the government tightened regulations on boreholes and the cost for a domestic borehole can reach up to R150 000.
"The yield depends entirely on the geology. Some boreholes are 20 metres, some 100 metres: I once did one near Clanwilliam in the Western Cape that was 500 meters deep. You need a proper geophysical survey first, because in places like Centurion, sinkholes make drilling complicated.”
She also described the human toll: “I’m scared for my children, my grandchildren, that there won’t be fresh water left when they are adults. I’ve been on site visits to apartments where neighbours are literally shooting at each other. It’s a war; water has become like gold and people are now physically fighting over it.”
Engineering expert Tshidi Mndzebele confirmed the infrastructure issues: “For decades, maintenance has been reactive instead of proactive. Engineering systems require continuous asset management. Without it, infrastructure inevitably fails. Water security is fundamentally an infrastructure issue and infrastructure problems are solvable when engineering solutions are prioritised.”
National assessments show that nearly 47% of treated water never reaches consumers, lost to leaks, ageing pipelines, illegal connections and inadequate maintenance. Municipalities alone lost R14.89 billion worth of water in one year.
“Immediate improvements are possible through pressure management, leak detection, smart monitoring and structured maintenance, long before building new dams or pipelines,” Mndzebele said.
The DWS confirmed that southern coastal KZN is facing water shortages due to drought and infrastructure challenges.
“Due to the poor condition of much of South Africa’s municipal water distribution infrastructure, the infrastructure becomes more vulnerable to extreme weather and sudden climate shocks,” the department said.
Water and Sanitation Minister Pemmy Majodina also warned about corruption exacerbating the crisis: “Every rand lost to corruption is a rand not spent on fixing leaks, expanding supply schemes, or protecting our freshwater ecosystems.”
The Water Sector Anti-Corruption Forum, launched with the SIU, aims to tackle fraud and improve accountability, Majodina said.
“Corruption manifests in inflated infrastructure contracts, collusive tender processes, manipulation of supply chains and the diversion of funds meant for maintaining water infrastructure. Every rand lost affects communities directly.”
While KwaZulu-Natal towns struggle with broken pipes and rationed taps, similar pressures are playing out across South Africa. Experts warn that there is no single “Day Zero,” but rather multiple localised crises, each driven by a mix of drought, ageing infrastructure, delayed bulk supply and rapid urban growth.
The Western and Northern Cape are grappling with hydrological drought and climate pressures, while Gauteng and other large metros face system fragility, aging infrastructure and delays in water availability for bulk supply. The Eastern Cape is challenged by a combination of drought, financial strain and aging systems and other provinces have struggled to recover from floods in recent years, including eThekwini in 2022, Limpopo and uMthatha.
Despite improvements in access to basic water services - rising from 55% in 1994 to roughly 90% in 2026 - reliability has declined sharply. A major concern is a severe skills shortage across engineering, asset management and water compliance, which affects adherence to national Blue Drop and Green Drop standards for drinking water and wastewater quality.
Nationally, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana has said that investment priorities include bulk water schemes, infrastructure refurbishment and strategic projects aimed at supporting households, agriculture and economic nodes. But experts warn that these measures alone cannot solve the deep systemic issues, which require skilled personnel, proactive management and depoliticised oversight.
Engineering experts argue that South Africa’s water crisis is largely infrastructure-driven and many solutions are already known and cost-effective. National assessments show that nearly half of treated water never reaches consumers, lost to leaks, illegal connections and aging pipelines. Municipalities alone lost R14.89 billion worth of water in a single year.
Experts say much of this can be addressed without building new dams or pipelines. Improvements such as pressure management, leak detection, smart monitoring and structured maintenance can prevent large-scale outages. Cape Town offers a working model with its combination of desalination, wastewater recovery and managed aquifer recharge, technologies already proven in other water-constrained cities like Perth and Melbourne.
The Department of Water and Sanitation is also working on nationwide programmes to rehabilitate neglected infrastructure and develop alternative water sources in areas left unserved by municipal systems. While these initiatives will take time, specialists emphasise that South Africa’s water challenges are not insurmountable if engineering solutions are prioritised and governance is strengthened.