A team of Israeli water experts is in South Africa to meet various municipalities, hoping to share world-leading technology that could help turn around the country’s ailing water infrastructure. South Africa is a water-stressed country with some bulk infrastructure as old as 80 years. Dr Clive Lipchin is heading the team of Israeli academics and spoke as part of a panel in Johannesburg. Lipchin is positive that their overtures to assist South Africa won’t be undermined or dismissed by politics, as an increasingly fractious relationship persists between the two countries. Michael Appel from BizNews has this report.
Dr Clive Lipchin on what pilot technologies could be implemented in South Africa.
So we are looking at developing pilot projects to address specifically the issue of sanitation in off-the-grid communities. In the case of South Africa, that would be primarily the informal settlements where they do not have access to sewer grids. And so sanitation is a big problem. It’s an environmental problem, and it’s a public health hazard. We hope to introduce some of the technology we have developed, which is onsite sewage treatment and recycling. The idea is to treat the sewage on site so that it removes the environmental and public health hazards. By recycling the water, we’re also able to return that water to the residents so that they can use that water either for small-scale farming or landscaping or any other non-consumptive use.
On what South Africa can do to quickly improve its water situation
Well, I think a quick one absolutely is to try to address leaks, because when you’re losing water, you’re losing money. So anything that you can do to address leakages is saving money as well. It’s certainly going to be a much more effective solution than developing more water supply. I mean, think about it. If you invest technology in increasing your water supply but your reticulation system is leaking, then you’re losing water even though you’ve invested all that money. So it doesn’t really make sense to invest money in increasing water supplies until you have actually done the best that you can do to minimise those leaks. And the technologies are out there to predict where leaks are happening. There is now growing technology that is not just about hardware, but about software using all kinds of algorithms that can actually predict where leaks will happen by measuring pressure along reticulation systems. So it’s those kinds of technologies that I would certainly encourage water utilities to look at to see how they can bring them into their management systems so that they can reduce their non-revenue water. Definitely, in my opinion, water management would be one of the first things a utility should look at improving.
On Johannesburg water losses of 40%
I’ll be honest, it doesn’t surprise me too much. I mean, if you take the city of Johannesburg, you know their infrastructure is going back 40, 50, 60 years, it’s almost a given. So again, if they can get a much better level of accuracy of resolution on where the leaks are, and it’s not always, you know, the big leaks that are the problem. It’s the small leaks that could be going on for years, for decades. So once they can map out effectively where the leaks are, they can then decide and prioritise which leaks should they go for first. And the technology in this area is very well advanced. Just as a comparison, you might have 40% leakage in the Johannesburg reticulation system. In our national system in Israel, our leakage is around 12-15% and that’s mostly because we’ve invested in these technologies. So, really, again, it’s about predicting the leaks even before they’ve become problematic. So Johannesburg Water and Rand Water, they definitely know the technologies are out there and I certainly encourage them to see how best to bring those systems online so that they can get from 40%, maybe down to 25%, let’s say, in the next year or two.
On South African and Israeli politics
I’m certainly aware of the politics revolving around South Africa and Israel’s relations. But all I can say is this: I have only been positively welcomed throughout my engagements, whether in the city of Tshwane, or by Johannesburg Water, or Rand Water. I have a growing and developing relationship with the University of the Free state, with the area of QwaQwa, which is an area that has a lot of very important history here in South Africa. I think a lot of the politics is, if anything, a diversion. South Africans who are working in water understand that Israel has a lot to offer and are only too happy to engage with us to solve their water problems. We simply put the politics aside and focus on the water.
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