UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA (UNISA)
College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences
⋄
Water for People and Progress:
Impact Mitigation and Management
Assignment 3 — September 2026
⋄
Module Code: HES4810
Module Name: Impact Mitigation and Management
Assignment No.: Assignment 03
Due Date: September 2026
Semester: Semester 2, 2026
Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for HES4810: Impact
Mitigation and Management at the University of South Africa.
,UNISA | HES4810 Impact Mitigation and Management — Assignment 3
Question 1: Water for People and Progress
The 2026 Water Week theme, “Water for People and Progress”, frames water not only as an
ecological resource but as the foundation of health, dignity and economic development. In
South Africa this framing is not new: water security has been a constitutional and legislative
priority since 1994, yet ageing infrastructure, pollution and climate variability continue to
undermine the gains made under the National Water Act 36 of 1998 (NWA) and the National
Environmental Management Act 107 of 1998 (NEMA).
1.1 Legislative instruments and water resource protection
Section 24 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 grants every person the
right to an environment that is not harmful to health or well-being, and the right to have the en-
vironment protected through reasonable legislative and other measures that prevent pollution
and ecological degradation while promoting justifiable economic and social development.
This provision does two things at once: it constitutionalises environmental protection as a
fundamental right rather than a policy preference, and it obliges the state to legislate. The
NWA and NEMA are the principal instruments through which section 24 is given practical
effect, so the three instruments must be read together rather than in isolation.
The NWA declares water a public trust held by the state on behalf of all citizens, replacing the
riparian ownership model of the earlier Water Act of 1956. Its central innovation is the Ecolog-
ical Reserve, a legally protected volume and quality of water set aside before any licence is
issued, which means ecosystem needs are no longer subordinate to agricultural, industrial or
municipal demand. Catchment Management Agencies are established to decentralise water
resource management to the river-basin scale, and a classification system sets resource qual-
ity objectives that balance protection with development. Critically, the Act’s transformative
intent, to correct the racially skewed water allocations of the apartheid era, is explicit in its
founding principles of sustainability and equity (South African Government, 1998; Ndlovu et
al., 2020).
NEMA operates at a different level: it supplies the overarching principles that all environmen-
tal decision-making in South Africa must follow, including the polluter-pays principle, the
precautionary principle and the duty of care. It is NEMA, not the NWA, that mandates Envi-
ronmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) for listed activities, which means that any new dam,
mine, industrial plant or agricultural development that could affect a water resource must be
Page 1 of 20
, UNISA | HES4810 Impact Mitigation and Management — Assignment 3
assessed and authorised before construction. NEMA also creates the enforcement architec-
ture, including compliance notices, criminal sanctions and the “fit and proper person” test for
environmental authorisation holders.
Evaluated critically, the three instruments are conceptually strong but practically constrained.
The Constitution sets the right without a corresponding enforcement budget; the NWA’s Re-
serve is frequently undermined in practice because monitoring capacity at catchment level
is thin, and licence enforcement lags behind allocation; and NEMA’s EIA regime, while pro-
cedurally rigorous, is often reduced to a box-ticking exercise when developer resources and
political pressure outweigh regulator capacity (see 1.6 and Question 3 for elaboration on
implementation gaps). The legislative package is therefore best understood as a strong con-
stitutional and statutory scaffold whose water security outcomes depend heavily on institu-
tional capacity that has not kept pace with the law.
Constitution, 1996 (s 24)
National Water Resource Strategy
National Water Act 36 of 1998 & NEMA 107 of 1998
By-laws & Catchment Management Strategies
Figure 1: Hierarchy of South African water governance instruments
1.2 Development pressures on water quality resources in Africa
Five development-related pressures dominate the literature on African water quality.
Urbanisation and inadequate sanitation infrastructure. Rapid, often unplanned urban growth
outpaces sewer and treatment capacity, so raw or partially treated sewage enters rivers and
aquifers, a pattern documented across Sub-Saharan African cities (WHO, 2023).
Agricultural intensification. Fertiliser and pesticide runoff drive eutrophication and nitrate
contamination of both surface and groundwater, while irrigation expansion increases abstrac-
tion pressure on already stressed catchments.
Mining and industrial effluent. Acid mine drainage, a legacy problem on South Africa’s Wit-
watersrand gold fields, releases sulphuric acid and heavy metals into groundwater and rivers
long after mines close, while untreated industrial effluent adds a further chemical burden.
Page 2 of 20
College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences
⋄
Water for People and Progress:
Impact Mitigation and Management
Assignment 3 — September 2026
⋄
Module Code: HES4810
Module Name: Impact Mitigation and Management
Assignment No.: Assignment 03
Due Date: September 2026
Semester: Semester 2, 2026
Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for HES4810: Impact
Mitigation and Management at the University of South Africa.
,UNISA | HES4810 Impact Mitigation and Management — Assignment 3
Question 1: Water for People and Progress
The 2026 Water Week theme, “Water for People and Progress”, frames water not only as an
ecological resource but as the foundation of health, dignity and economic development. In
South Africa this framing is not new: water security has been a constitutional and legislative
priority since 1994, yet ageing infrastructure, pollution and climate variability continue to
undermine the gains made under the National Water Act 36 of 1998 (NWA) and the National
Environmental Management Act 107 of 1998 (NEMA).
1.1 Legislative instruments and water resource protection
Section 24 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 grants every person the
right to an environment that is not harmful to health or well-being, and the right to have the en-
vironment protected through reasonable legislative and other measures that prevent pollution
and ecological degradation while promoting justifiable economic and social development.
This provision does two things at once: it constitutionalises environmental protection as a
fundamental right rather than a policy preference, and it obliges the state to legislate. The
NWA and NEMA are the principal instruments through which section 24 is given practical
effect, so the three instruments must be read together rather than in isolation.
The NWA declares water a public trust held by the state on behalf of all citizens, replacing the
riparian ownership model of the earlier Water Act of 1956. Its central innovation is the Ecolog-
ical Reserve, a legally protected volume and quality of water set aside before any licence is
issued, which means ecosystem needs are no longer subordinate to agricultural, industrial or
municipal demand. Catchment Management Agencies are established to decentralise water
resource management to the river-basin scale, and a classification system sets resource qual-
ity objectives that balance protection with development. Critically, the Act’s transformative
intent, to correct the racially skewed water allocations of the apartheid era, is explicit in its
founding principles of sustainability and equity (South African Government, 1998; Ndlovu et
al., 2020).
NEMA operates at a different level: it supplies the overarching principles that all environmen-
tal decision-making in South Africa must follow, including the polluter-pays principle, the
precautionary principle and the duty of care. It is NEMA, not the NWA, that mandates Envi-
ronmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) for listed activities, which means that any new dam,
mine, industrial plant or agricultural development that could affect a water resource must be
Page 1 of 20
, UNISA | HES4810 Impact Mitigation and Management — Assignment 3
assessed and authorised before construction. NEMA also creates the enforcement architec-
ture, including compliance notices, criminal sanctions and the “fit and proper person” test for
environmental authorisation holders.
Evaluated critically, the three instruments are conceptually strong but practically constrained.
The Constitution sets the right without a corresponding enforcement budget; the NWA’s Re-
serve is frequently undermined in practice because monitoring capacity at catchment level
is thin, and licence enforcement lags behind allocation; and NEMA’s EIA regime, while pro-
cedurally rigorous, is often reduced to a box-ticking exercise when developer resources and
political pressure outweigh regulator capacity (see 1.6 and Question 3 for elaboration on
implementation gaps). The legislative package is therefore best understood as a strong con-
stitutional and statutory scaffold whose water security outcomes depend heavily on institu-
tional capacity that has not kept pace with the law.
Constitution, 1996 (s 24)
National Water Resource Strategy
National Water Act 36 of 1998 & NEMA 107 of 1998
By-laws & Catchment Management Strategies
Figure 1: Hierarchy of South African water governance instruments
1.2 Development pressures on water quality resources in Africa
Five development-related pressures dominate the literature on African water quality.
Urbanisation and inadequate sanitation infrastructure. Rapid, often unplanned urban growth
outpaces sewer and treatment capacity, so raw or partially treated sewage enters rivers and
aquifers, a pattern documented across Sub-Saharan African cities (WHO, 2023).
Agricultural intensification. Fertiliser and pesticide runoff drive eutrophication and nitrate
contamination of both surface and groundwater, while irrigation expansion increases abstrac-
tion pressure on already stressed catchments.
Mining and industrial effluent. Acid mine drainage, a legacy problem on South Africa’s Wit-
watersrand gold fields, releases sulphuric acid and heavy metals into groundwater and rivers
long after mines close, while untreated industrial effluent adds a further chemical burden.
Page 2 of 20
