Water Sensitive Development – is the Red Book the Problem?

“It’s in the Red Book”. The engineer leaned back in his chair and that was the end of the discussion. On the basis of this pronouncement, the project team would not consider off-grid water sources as part of a hybrid water supply system. This conversation took place in 2013, in advance of Cape Town’s drought, but with sufficient forewarning of its imminence.

It was beyond belief. Could there really be a guideline that prevented water sensitive practice? The short answer is yes. The long answer was that at that time, the Red Book was not alone, water governance broadly was and still is, ill-equipped to manage the complexities of the urban water system. Water governance in this context refers to the legislation, strategies and guidelines that govern water use in both urban and rural areas. The National Water Act (1998), the highest level of the water governance hierarchy affirms the Constitution’s statement that water is a scarce resource that belongs to all South Africans. It states that the goal for water resource management is for sustainable water use for the benefit of all South Africans whilst promoting integrated resource management and the participation of all in water management.

The complementary National Water Services Act (1997) addresses mandates and the supply of water services and water supply for urban areas. The National Water Quality Guidelines (1996) (NWQG) outline the quality specification for potable water amongst others, including swimming pool water which must, similarly to water used for cooking and body washing, be SANS 241 compliant. Whilst water “use” is not determined by the “source” (eg. groundwater), it is specified in the NWQG. For those using rainwater to top-up swimming pools this is a problem because swimming pool water must be SANS 241 compliant. Compliance would necessitate water treatment, increasing the cost and complexity of alternative water interventions. It follows that the NWQG limits the applicability of alternative water sources, further reinforcing the dominance of water service providers (municipalities), rendering many well-meaning alternative water installations non-compliant.

Since my discussion in 2013, the Red Book has been revised and there is reason for hope. But there is also still reason for concern.

Whereas the 2000 Red Book assumed that all water for household use would be supplied by municipalities and that this water would be potable, the 2019 Red Book encourages the exploration of “untreated water sources” to reduce the municipal water demand requirement. The author notes that the need for supplementary water supply is not limited to reducing municipal demand, but is a key component in creating redundancy within the water system to improve resilience and adaption as towns and cities move into a future of greater uncertainty. Encouragingly, there are hints towards this approach in the Average Annual Daily Demand section that discusses on-site supplementary water sources aimed at reducing the municipal water supply requirement.

The revised Red Book, similarly to the 2000 Red Book, whilst promoting an integrated approach and holistic design, still reinforces silos because it lacks an overarching framework that includes catchment management and water sensitive planning as a clearly defined layer. Because water management is integral to all aspects of urban settlement-making, it is a thread that must be consistently represented throughout for connectivity. Structural informants such as streets, blocks and plots, must therefore be planned within their context, including the water system. Consideration must be given to how best to plan settlements to augment and improve the water systems’ operations and limit impact. It follows that development planning structure is defined by the location of ecological infrastructure including the areas that are critical for, for example – aquifer recharge. In addition, urban management plans and interventions for water resource management and sustainability must be prepared and implemented. These informants cannot be retro-fitted into a plan and their absence in the planning sections of the revised Red Book are not only a concern, but further illustrate a non-integrated planning approach.

Why is all of this important? Because policy, just like a building or any design project has a concept and is designed towards a specific outcome. The National Water Act outlines the concept at a high level, but the detailing and implementation fall short because it does not consider the urban water system complexity and the nexus created when it connects to the natural water system, or the role of professional disciplines’ practice.

Because the Red Book is the built environment professionals “go-to”, it has a mighty weight in influencing development decisions. It must therefore be fit-for-purpose and provide the correct guidance in the broadstrokes and the detail. Through understanding the many professional disciplines responsible throughout the system, so linkages within the water system can be built and implementation of water sensitive projects can happen. However, the document structure and inconsistency across sections reflects in the project design and implementation and mirrors the professional disciplines’ silos, echoing earlier observations related to the need for an overarching framework and detract from the progress made.

Our project team structures and how we manage scope must therefore change to better manage interfaces between disciplines and allow for water sensitive outcomes. The roadway design section illustrates these issues. It does not refer to or include details of permeable paving, rain gardens or dropped kerbs as per the stormwater management section and (repeated) water sensitive design sub-sections. This would not be an issue if the Red Book were not the engineers “go-to”.

Water system reimagining has to date focussed on water governance (legislation) as the acupuncture point for systems change. It is and it isn’t, because each part of the urban water system is designed, specified and built by a built environment professional. It is the result of a deliberate process undertaken by teams of consultants. Consultants are therefore the de facto implementers of water sensitive design at every scale – from greywater systems (engineers) to spatial planning for aquifer recharge (spatial planners); to road design (engineers) and rain gardens (landscape architects) and with this role comes an enormous responsibility. Refining the legislation will have little material impact, but getting the Red Book right – will, to a point.

While water sensitive design could be seen simply as “best practice”, the lack of supporting building regulations, educated regulators and by-laws, limits implementation. In addition, the allocation of, for example stormwater management to engineering works also plays a role. This work straddles engineering and landscape architecture scope, but because of the current scope and fee structures, is typically approached using higher fee-earning engineered “grey” infrastructure, rather than “best practice”, cost-effective ecological infrastructure.

Implementing water sensitive design is frustrated by vested interests that reinforce the status quo. However, using the governance (legislation) and the Red Book as a reason for implementing outdated ideas is problematic when the problem also lies in the practice.

It took 20 years to revise the Red Book. Can we wait this long for the governance to change before we act? Or do built environment professionals – the designers and builders of the urban water system – use their agency to create the shift towards “best practice” based on water sensitive design, simply because it is best practice? Only time will tell, but it is time that Cape Town and South Africa no longer have.

Author: Tamsin Faragher