By Eleanor Momberg
South Africa's water crisis was "like a ticking time bomb" waiting to explode. "All the signs are there," said Deon Nel, the manager of the World Wide Fund for Nature's Sanlam Living Waters Partnership.
Nel's confirmation of the looming water crisis comes on the heels of the warning by Dr Anthony Turton, the former natural resource and environment unit fellow at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), that the water crisis and the lack of surplus water in South Africa would hamper future economic development.
Turton also stated in a paper - which he was prevented from delivering at a CSIR conference last month - that violence similar to that experienced during the xenophobic attacks in May could be unleashed "in response to perceptions of deteriorating public health" as a result of declining water quality.
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The link between health and the quality of water supplied to the populace became clear in recent weeks with the outbreak of cholera in Zimbabwe because of the collapse of water purification systems and increased pollution in rivers and wells.
The United Nations Environment Programme's fourth Global Environment Outlook, published last year, stated that more than 2 million people in the developing world died needlessly each year from waterborne diseases, and most of them were children younger than five.
Irrigation for agriculture used about 70 percent of available water. The report added that, by 2025, water use would have risen by 50 percent in developing countries and by 18 percent in the developed world.
"The escalating burden of water demand will become intolerable in water-scarce countries," the report said.
One such country is South Africa, where many water sources are being over-exploited - a fact emphasised in the South Africa Environment Outlook.
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