Rainwater harvesting :a sustainable practice for low-income housing in South Africa

This report gives an overview on issues surrounding sustainable water management practices, specifically, rainwater harvesting (RWH), for low income households in South Africa. The agenda for sustainable development in South Africa has over time, downplayed the importance of Rainwater Harvesting. However, the South African Region is already a water scarce area, experiencing environmental and other threats to its limited water resources such as rapidly increasing demand for water from a growing population and economic sectors. A purely qualitative research method was used to conduct this Research Report which demonstrated that Rainwater Harvesting across the world can bring immense socio-economic and environmental benefits such as increased food security, improved sanitation and quality of the natural environment. A key question of this Research Report was to establish whether Rainwater Harvesting could be feasible for use in Low-income households in South Africa. This research revealed that the DoH and DWAF can constitute projects for Rainwater Harvesting for Low-income households in their programmes