Durban - The study of water-related problems is falling into decline, leaving the country vulnerable to “disastrous” results in an era of growing human population, pollution and climate change.
This is the warning from the Water Research Commission and water experts who met to discuss the need for a new, long-term research strategy on hydrology (the scientific study of water and the movement or storage of water).
Commission research manager Wandile Nomqhupu said few universities were committed to training hydrologists, a problem exacerbated by the limited pool of hydrologists being recruited by the private sector.
Professor Roland Schulze of the University of KZN, one of several water experts from academia, government and the private sector who attended the meeting to discuss the future of hydrology, said challenges were amplified in developing countries where water scarcity was a reality.
This was due to the semi-arid to arid nature of the climate, the low ratio of run-off to rainfall, increasing demand from a growing population, deteriorating water quality and the threat of climate change.
“The cost of not doing anything about these problems could be disastrous in the long run,” he said.
Professor Denis Hughes of Rhodes University echoed this, noting that South Africa was moving into an uncertain future because of human-induced changes to the water cycle and the environment.
Nomqhupu said the country’s ability to manage its limited water resources would be determined largely by the ability to produce world-class hydrologists.
Strategy
“Unfortunately, the country does not seem to have a long-term strategy to ensure a constant supply of hydrologists with a strong foundation in science and engineering.”
Nomqhupu said that during the 1970s South Africa had a specialist committee for research into the water cycle that involved the Department of Water Affairs, Water Research Commission and other government departments.
As a result of this committee’s work, several universities set up hydrology research centres that produced a number of internationally recognised experts. More recently, however, the country no longer had a clear and nationally agreed hydrology research programme.
“The absence of a national strategy to grow hydrology research expertise and a mechanism to audit capacity in this field leaves the country vulnerable,” Nomqhupu said. - The Mercury