1. Water conservation and water demand management One of the general principles of water allocation is that water use must be efficient. Hence, before DWA can approve a water use licence the efficiency of the existing water use must be clearly demonstrated. A WC/WDM analysis has therefore been carried out to quantify the water supply situation in terms of acceptable benchmarks.

2. Benchmarks: – Per/capita water use – Water use per household – Non-revenue water – Losses/unaccounted for water

3. Summary and conclusions

4. Nelspruit

5. White River / Rocky Drift

6. Hazyview

7. Nsikazi North

8. Nsikazi South

9. Karino/Plaston corridor

10. Matsulu

11. Irrigation: Overall conclusions Irrigated agriculture in the Mbombela Municipal area is generally under serious threat due to a number of key factors including: Reducing assurance of supply due to growing erosion of available water resources to other sectors Reducing water quality Rapidly escalating pumping (electricity) costs which are effectively forcing higher levels of water use efficiency. Low morale in the agricultural sector (affecting investment and productivity).

12. Consequently the irrigation sector is unlikely to be willing to further reduce its supplies through water trading. Cutting back on unlawful water use is one way of making more water available to legitimate users, or for further licence allocations.