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(KSA 3) Water Use and Waste
Management
THRUST 4: Sustainable And Integrated Industrial Water Management
Scope
Water is a strategic issue to the industrial sector. While the water usage by the industrial sectors are not as great as, e.g., agri-culture or domestic consumption, the impacts of the pollutants in industrial wastes and effluents on health and the environment can be significant, costly and long-lasting. The aim of this thrust is to quantify water use and waste production, predict impacts (risks) over the short-, medium- and long-term, and develop and apply methods of prevention, minimisation, reuse, recycle, recovery and beneficiation. This thrust also aims to provide appropriate, innovative and integrated solutions for water efficiency and waste management for indus-tries. In addition, Thrust 4 establishes the governance, policy and regulatory environment that currently exists and the enabling environ-ment that will be required to change behaviours to conserve water, grow the economy, and protect society and the environment.
Current programmes are:
Programme 1: Emerging challenges and
solutions for the 21st century
Scope: This programme seeks to
look at major challenges that may face South Africa in future from a
water quality, quantity, and security level. It will explore emerging
fields in science and engineering like nanotechnology to provide
solutions to these challenges. In addition, t seeking new solutions,
this programme will also investigate new and emerging industries, their
water needs and the associated threats to health and environment. The
concept of sustainable future industrial complexes and their water
management will allow for better planning and regulation of new
industries allowing for improved adoption of integrated resource
management systems, processes and tools.
Programme 2: Integrated management
Scope: This programme focuses
on integrated and innovative management arrangements e.g. PPP to support
industry and government programmes which may be site, catchment and/or
region specific. While the programme will focus on water, it aims to
promote a more holistic approach to resource (water, energy and carbon)
management by industries to bring about sustainable approaches to water
and wastewater management ensuring that liabilities (waste) are turned
into assets (resources) for the benefit of the environment, society and
economy.
Programme 3: Quantification, prediction
and minimisation of water use and waste production
Scope: In order to prioritise
those facets of industrial water management that need the most urgent
attention, it is important to quantify the water used and waste produced
by different sectors. This programme will also look to develop new
methodologies and models to aid in quantification, prediction and
evaluation of data. The environmental consequences of waste products are
almost always long-term in nature and these long-lasting (legacy)
effects were often not fully appreciated in the past, and consequently
not properly considered when waste was disposed of. Thus, this programme
also aims to establish and improve pollution prediction capabilities
appropriate to South African conditions and to develop cost-effective
techniques and approaches to minimise or reduce the impact that legacy
and new waste products have on the environment.
Programme 4: Governance, policy,
regulatory, and economical instruments to improve industrial water
management
Scope: The regulatory
authorities are responsible for authorising and regulating the impact of
industrial waste on the quality and quantity of our water resources.
Traditionally the resource-intensive command-and-control approach was
used almost exclusively to manage water quality. Internationally, use is
increasingly made of indirect economic or other instruments to
supplement or even replace the command-and-control approach to water
quality management. These new approaches are believed to be more cost
effective and to improve equity. Both the established and new approaches
are being investigated and refined in order to support improvements to
the governance, policy, regulatory, self-regulatory, and financial
mechanisms that could be used to control and reduce the negative
environmental effects associated with industrial waste. This programme
will largely look at these mechanisms from an industry perspective in
order to improve, review and enable implementation.
Programme 5: Water efficiency , cleaner
production, beneficiation and treatment of industrial effluents
Scope: This programme looks at
water use efficiency and associated tools, methodologies and systems as
a primary driver of reduced effluent generation. In spite of efforts to
minimise waste production it is acknowledged that effluent production
will for the foreseeable future remain an expected consequence of
industrial activities and thus this programme aims to support the
development of a range of processes and techniques for effective
beneficiation, recovery, reuse, recycle, disposal and ultimately
treatment of industrial effluents. The international trend towards
waste management is to minimise the production of waste by adopting
cleaner production processes and green chemistry concepts for chemicals.
Approaches such as life-cycle analysis are employed to ensure that the
net effect is positive and does not merely represent the transfer of
negative effects from one sector or environmental medium to another. In
addition, the programme entails the exploration and exploitation of
in-process recycle and reuse opportunities prior to end-of-pipe
treatment solutions. Expected outcomes include the potential recovery of
materials, water and energy for beneficial reuse and fundamental
scientific/engineering support for process development and thus longer
term initiation of the secondary economy opportunities within South
Africa.
Linkages to Government outcomes
These research results are in direct support of the following outputs under Outcomes 9 and 10 of the Programme of Action of The Presidency as announced in May 2010:
Outcome 10: Environmental assets and natural resources that are well protected
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Output 1: Enhanced quality and quantity of water resources
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Reduction of water loss from distribution networks from current levels of approximately 30% to 18% by 2014 coupled with encouraging users to save water
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To improve current capacity to treat wastewater, 80% of sewage and wastewater treatment plants should be up-graded by 2015 and the percentage of wastewater treatment plants meeting water quality standards should be in-creased from 40% to 80% by 2014
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Output 2: Reduced greenhouse gas emissions, climate change impacts and improved air/atmospheric quality
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