Groundwater/surface-water interaction is receiving increasing focus in Africa due to its importance to ecologic systems and sustainability. In South Africa’s 1998 National Water Act (NWA), water-use licenses, including groundwater, are granted only after defining the Reserve, the amount of water needed to supply basic human needs and preserve some ecological integrity. Accurate quantification of groundwater contributions to ecosystems for successful implementation of the NWA proves challenging; many of South Africa’s aquifers are in heterogeneous and anisotropic fractured-rock settings. This paper reviews the current conceptualizations and investigative approaches regarding groundwater/surface-water interactions in the context of South African policies. Some selected pitfall experiences are emphasized. The most common approach in South Africa is estimation of average annual fluxes at the scale of fourth-order catchments (∼500 km2) with baseflow separation techniques and then subtracting the groundwater discharge rate from the recharge rate. This approach might be a good start, but it ignores spatial and temporal variability, potentially missing local impacts associated with production-well placement. As South Africa’s NWA has already been emulated in many countries including Zambia, Zimbabwe and Kenya, the successes and failures of the South African experience dealing with the groundwater/surface-water interaction will be analyzed to guide future policy directions.

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Safe drinking water for all is unlikely to be achieved without major improvements in the sustainability of rural water supplies in sub-Saharan Africa. Despite heavy dependence on groundwater across the African continent, there is little empirical evidence on the relative reliability of different water-lifting technologies. This study comparatively evaluated the operational performance of the BluePump against the Afridev, India Mark II and PB Mark II handpumps. The field assessment took place in Turkana County (northern Kenya) and The Gambia, contexts with contrasting environmental, social and institutional characteristics. When controlling for other variables, in both study sites the BluePump had significantly lower odds of a breakdown occurring over a 12-month period compared with other handpumps. The BluePump also had significantly lower odds of a nonfunctional status relative to the Afridev in Turkana, though no significant effect on functionality was observed relative to the India Mark II in either study site or the PB Mark II in The Gambia. In Turkana, the impact of fewer breakdowns on operational uptime and point-in-time functionality may have been moderated by a subsidised maintenance service for which communities pay a fixed annual fee irrespective of handpump type and breakdown frequency. In The Gambia, the BluePump had significantly longer breakdowns than Mark II handpumps because of a problematic maintenance model. The results indicate that technological innovations such as the BluePump can lead to operational improvements, but technology alone is no panacea and the long-term sustainability of water supplies ultimately depends upon the effectiveness of maintenance services.

Based on a five-town case-study cohort in Kenya, a conceptual framework has been developed to enable the formulation of holistic and effective strategies that encompass the national aspirations and regional to global sustainability agendas, and which can be used to monitor progress in achieving set objectives. The approach is flexible, scalable and transferrable, so that it can be applied in different contexts and using different indicators, based upon the same construct. Insufficient technical knowledge of urban aquifers and their interplay with the wider social-ecological system constrains the development of holistic, effective and robust management systems to ensure their sustainability for intended uses. The objective was to consider governance and management solutions that could promote water security for urban towns in Kenya through the sustainable use of groundwater in the context of its complex hydrogeology, water access disparities, competing uses and future risks. The in force national and county water policies, strategies, and plans for the case study areas were critically reviewed. The status of aquifer knowledge, water access disparities, competing uses, and risks was evaluated from critical literature reviews and data compilation, fieldwork, and analysis of indicator datasets from the Kenya 2009 census. Key aquifers need urgent characterisation to reverse the current situation whereby development proceeds with insufficient aquifer knowledge. Private sector and public participation in management should be enhanced through decentralised management approaches. Water infrastructure and technologies should be fit-for-purpose in application and scale, and the pro-poor focus should be underpinned by appropriately focused management regimes.