A. Background
Mpumalanga
is one of South Africa’s nine provinces and is in the north-east of the
country. It is the coal heartland of South Africa and plays a critical role in
national energy security through coal mining and housing coal power plants,
which use about 50 and 250 million cubic meters of water per annum respectively.
The other major economic sectors include agriculture, mining and eco-tourism,
the province forms part of the Kruger National Park and the Great Limpopo Transfrontier
Park. Therefore, the water sector and water security are fundamental in
ensuring socio-economic development in Mpumalanga. However, the water sector is
stressed and complex. Mpumalanga is part of the following water management
areas (WMAs), the Vaal, Inkomati-Usuthu and Olifants. In addition to provincial
dams, water resources are heavily augmented by several water transfer schemes,
such as the Integrated Vaal River System (IVRS), Vaal River Eastern Sub-System
(VRESS) and the Mokolo Crocodile Water Augmentation Project (MCWAP) inter
alia and further schemes are being considered. Furthermore, the province is
part of four transboundary water courses, the Orange-Senqu, Limpopo, Maputo and
Inkomati rivers. Within this inter-connected and complex system, ensuring
productive water allocations amongst competing users, while ensuring water
resources sustainability and resilience, is a challenging task and water
resources are strained.
Water and
major economic sectors may be affected by climate change in manner that has not
been previously captured, such as increased rainfall variability, high
evaporation, and more frequent and severe droughts; thus, disrupting water
systems, services, social systems, and overall, the aims of the ongoing
provincial climate response strategy as well as other expected water security
goals of the province. This is supported and highlighted by the NCCRSWS, where
bottom-up climate change risk assessments are now part of best practice. Similarly,
additional uncertain drivers such as land use change, power generation plant
water use changes, population growth and shifts in demographics might also
hinder Mpumalanga’s water security, and overall development. At the same time, the
economic, social, and environmental structure of the region can be affected by
national policy (i.e. just transition) and other climate and growth agendas.
This in turn may alter the characteristics of the water sector dynamics in the province.
The uncertainty of these often-competing goals and users requires potential
interventions to be understood and backed through the lens of hydro-economics. Altogether,
a wide range of climatic and non-climatic conditions, with uncertain drivers of
change in terms of their magnitude, occurrence, and impact, are expected to
change water security aims in Mpumalanga.
As
result, the Government of Mpumalanga (GoM) has requested the Bank’s assistance
to develop a study on prioritizing resilient water investments towards water
security in Mpumalanga. This includes prioritizing the investments/interventions
proposed by the various strategies, studies and plans, as well as additional
options that have since then emerged, considering uncertain future conditions
of change.
The main objective of this
assignment is to develop a provincial water resilience strategy for Mpumalanga.
This study will quantitatively assess the risks of climate change for water resources
and services and development alternatives vis-à-vis other identified risks
unrelated to such change. The study will ultimately look to develop a roadmap
and prioritization of investments for a phased adaptation leading to increased
multi-dimensional resilience of the Mpumalanga water resources system.
The
assessment will evaluate trade-offs across in-province water management and
services investments as well as inter-provincial and transboundary options. The
assessment will include all water uses within the province, namely domestic
users, water for agriculture and food security, industrial and other economic
uses as well ecosystem services, considering the National Water Act’s
principles and stated prioritization of water users as well as the water
distribution and other objectives of the NWRS-3. Similarly, dimensions of
social equity, economics, finance, and development shall remain a critical
component of the assessment and trade-off analysis.
