The South African National Bottled Water Association (SANBWA) has warned that repeated water mismanagement and overuse could lead to “water bankruptcy” in South Africa.
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A new United Nations report says the world has entered an “era of global water bankruptcy”, with serious consequences for food security, economies and everyday access to safe water.
The concept is simple.
Just as households can overspend their income and drain their savings, countries and cities can use more water than nature can replace.
Once underground aquifers, rivers and wetlands are depleted or polluted beyond repair, the system is effectively “bankrupt”.
For South Africa, this is not a distant or abstract risk.
Water bankruptcy in SA
SANBWA CEO Charlotte Metcalf says water bankruptcy is not about drought alone.
“This is about years of poor planning, weak maintenance, pollution and over-extraction. A good rainy season does not fix a broken system.”
Across the country, ageing infrastructure, high water losses, polluted rivers and unmanaged groundwater extraction have left many municipalities operating on borrowed time.
In some areas, boreholes are drilled without proper studies, aquifers are over-pumped and once-clean sources become vulnerable to contamination.
Knysna is one of the clearest real-world examples of water bankruptcy in the country.
Despite being a high-rainfall, high-income coastal town, Knysna has faced repeated water emergencies driven largely by years of poor water management, delayed infrastructure upgrades, and increasing demand from population growth and tourism.
Often framed as a pollution crisis, the Vaal River system also increasingly reflects functional water bankruptcy, where water still exists but has become progressively unusable due to sustained mismanagement, including chronic sewage pollution, failing wastewater works, degraded wetlands, weak enforcement and rising treatment costs beyond municipal capacity.
No return
The UN report makes it clear that many water systems worldwide can no longer return to historic levels, even if rainfall improves.
The damage is permanent.
The report highlights that water bankruptcy is overwhelmingly caused by human decisions, not nature alone.
Mismanagement, lack of monitoring and failure to protect water sources are the common threads.
For consumers, the implications are serious.
Water bankruptcy affects food prices, household water reliability, public health and economic stability.
“When a water system collapses, the poorest communities feel it first and hardest. That is why responsible water stewardship is a social and economic necessity.”
Metcalf believes the UN’s warning should serve as a wake-up call for South Africa to protect water resources before they are lost for good.
“Declaring water bankruptcy is not a call for panic. It’s about honesty. If we face the reality now, we can still change course.
“If we ignore it, the cost financially, socially and environmentally will be far higher.”
