The prolonged drought that hit most parts of our country not long ago made us realise the importance of having alternative sources of water.
It became clear that as a country we cannot rely on surface water only.
Considerably, most people who have boreholes in their backyards were considered to be saving on their water bill.
Some might have even thought that water from boreholes can only be used in the garden but this is not the case at all.
It is important to test underground water in order to determine if it can be consumed by humans and animals.
Some of the water is so clean that it can be consumed without adding any chlorine or other purifiers.
Groundwater has to squeeze through pore spaces of rock and sediment to move through an aquifer, which is an underground layer of water-bearing permeable rock.
The porosity of such aquifers make them good filters for natural water purification.
According to the Water Research Commission, “South Africa’s aquifer systems have received their water-bearing properties, particularly the permeability, through the region’s geological and hydrological history and as a result of the physical and chemical composition of the different rock types.”
Simply put, South Africa has sufficient aquifers with a high yield potential.
For this reason many municipalities did groundwater exploration during the drought especially in villages and areas that were harder to connect to the main supply due to distance or terrain.
Many boreholes were successfully drilled and had large yields of water but in the same breath there were many that did not have as much and dried up quicker.
These days technology such as satellite thermal imaging is used to identify water under the earth’s surface but this in itself is not a cheap exercise.
The lesson learnt during this drought period is that groundwater remains an important alternative because in cases where the distance was too long to use trucks to ferry water, the option had to be explored.
During the drought the Department of Water and Sanitation augmented the water supply through use of water trucks and movable tankers.
More research has to be done pertaining to groundwater as the main source of water in case another drought occurs.
- Larry Crisp is the head of communications at the Department of Water and Sanitation in the Free State.