Charging for stormwater in South Africa

Abstract

The social, economic and environmental impacts of poor water quality on South Africa's urban aquatic systems are increasingly being highlighted by the media. Improving the water quality in these systems will require catchment-wide strategies, including the monitoring and management of point and non-point source pollution collected in stormwater. Significant costs may be incurred; however, international experience suggests that these are outweighed by the benefits.Municipalities across South Africa charge their citizens for potable water and sewerage. Stormwater management, however, is generally funded through municipal rates. Competition with other pressing needs frequently results in the stormwater departments being significantly under-funded -at times only receiving a tenth of what is required for water quantity management. Internationally, an increasing number of cities have introduced a direct charge for stormwater management in order to secure the funding required to manage stormwater and its associated water pollution, and to serve as a disincentive to polluting practices on the part of landowners. In order to ensure adequate funding for stormwater management in South Africa, municipalities need to consider charging for stormwater management either based on an Equivalent Residential Unit (ERU) or Residential Equivalent Factor (REF), combined with an appropriate discount scheme for on-site stormwater management. Preliminary indicative rates have been calculated for municipalities across South Africa using the Damage Avoidance Cost (DAC) approach. The results indicate that the amount that municipalities could and should charge varies widely, from ZAR30 (2010) to ZAR110 (2010) per residential unit per month, depending on climatic zone and level of treatment.

Categorising Area Models for Stormwater Fees at Property Level: A Literature Review

“…The organization of the water sector can be fragmented, in that various administrative units have shared responsibility for e.g., stormwater management from the built environment. For example, in the literature we have found that in some cities the Road Department is responsible for the stormwater management [10], while in other cities this belongs to the Water and Sewerage Department. In addition to organizational barriers, we also find examples of financial barriers.…”

“…The equivalent residential housing unit [9]- [11], [13]- [16], [24]- [35] approach, uses the average impervious area of a property as a standard unit to determine the stormwater fee. Residential equivalent factor [10], [14], [29] calculates the average runoff volume for a selected stormwater event for properties with the same zone status (e.g., single dwelling), and all properties in this zone-category are charged the same fee. For the gross property area, a stormwater fee is imposed on the property's gross area.…”

“…This model assumes that the entire property contributes to run-off or that all properties are equally developed. The distributed transportation alternative [10], [13] considers the stormwater management of municipal roads and calculates the toll based on the average mileage for a specific user. The hydrologic alternative fee [10], [11], [36] is based on the characteristics of the individual property, such as soil type, topography, impervious area, and requires detailed information about each plot.…”

“…The distributed transportation alternative [10], [13] considers the stormwater management of municipal roads and calculates the toll based on the average mileage for a specific user. The hydrologic alternative fee [10], [11], [36] is based on the characteristics of the individual property, such as soil type, topography, impervious area, and requires detailed information about each plot. Incentive scheme is used to encourage residents to manage as much stormwater as possible on their own property [9], [12], [13], [32], [37].…”

“…Ngyen et al [33, p. 157] Table 3: Evaluation of stormwater fee models. 1 Equivalent residential unit [10], [11], [13], [14], [26], [27], [29], [38], [42] x claims that "the close cooperation of various levels of government administration is a vital factor for successful implementation". Many of the barriers are difficult to overcome because they are systemic and embedded within organizational cultures, practices and processes [54].…”