Department of Water Affairs of South Africa
The Department of Water Affairs is the custodian of South Africa's water resources. It is primarily responsible for the formulation and implementation of policy governing this sector. It also has override responsibility for water services provided by local government.
While striving to ensure that all South Africans gain access to clean water and safe sanitation, the water sector also promotes effective and efficient water resources management to ensure sustainable economic and social development.
DWA’s core functions are policy formulation, water resource management, infrastructure development, capacity building, intergovernmental and intra-sectorial coordination, and water regulation.
The Demonstration Cases defined during the consultation meetings reflect the core needs for water resource management on a sub-catchment level, which is the number one issue in South Africa. Specifically, the capacities provided within TIGER-NET support an EO based approach for water balance monitoring, consisting of the following components
- Water discharge forecasting
- Land cover based water demand mapping
- Water management related land cover change mapping
Special functionalities are included in the WOIS, like water demand attribution of EO based land cover map databases, with the resulting product incorporated in a general water balance monitoring framework.
