Centre for Environmental Rights – Advancing Environmental Rights in South Africa

Draft revised National Water Resource Strategy

Draft revised National Water Resource Strategy

The National Water Resource Strategy (NWRS) is established in terms of section 5 of the National Water Act, 1998 (NWA). It provides the framework for the protection, use, development, conservation, management and control of water resources for the country as a whole. It also provides the framework within which water will be managed at regional or catchment level, in defined water management areas. The NWRS, which must be formally reviewed from time to time, is binding on all authorities and institutions exercising powers or perfuming duties under the NWA.

The first version of the NWRS was published in September 2004. In 2012, the Minister of Water Affairs, as she was then, published a draft revised NWRS for comment on 7 September 2012.

The Centre for Environmental Rights (CER) submitted comments in the draft revised NWRS to the National Assembly’s Portfolio Committee on Water and Environmental Affairs on 18 October 2012 and to the Department of Water Affairs, as it was then, on 13 December 2012.

The revised NWRS, also known as National Water Resource Strategy 2, was finally published by the Minister of Water Affairs in June 2013.