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There are a range of environmental issues in Southern Africa, such as climate change, land, water, deforestation, land degradation, and pollution.The Southern Africa region itself, except for South Africa, [1] produces less carbon emissions but is a recipient of climate change impacts characterized by changes in precipitation, extreme weather events and hot temperatures.
Air pollution in Africa is coming to the forefront and must not be ignored. For example, in South Africa the mercury levels are severe due to coal combustion and gold mining. Mercury is absorbed from the air into the soil and water. [19] The soil allows the crops to absorb the mercury, which humans ingest.
In many cases, the district municipalities are the water services authorities. However, the national government can assign responsibility for service provision to local municipalities. Overall, there are 169 water services authorities in South Africa, including water boards, district municipalities, local municipalities and municipal companies.
More specifically, South Africa's framework environmental law, NEMA, provides for the designation of Environmental Management Inspectors (EMIs), whose specific mandate it is to monitor and enforce compliance with South Africa's environmental regime, and to investigate potential offences and breaches of it.
Industrial waste may pollute the nearby soil or adjacent water bodies, and can contaminate groundwater, lakes, streams, rivers or coastal waters. [1] Industrial waste is often mixed into municipal waste, making accurate assessments difficult. An estimate for the US goes as high as 7.6 billion tons of industrial waste produced annually, as of 2017.
AfriForum gathered water samples from the Hennops River and according to the results‚ more than 1 000 000 units of the indicator microbe Escherichia coli were present per 100 ml of water. The health risk is high for people coming into full or partial contact with water having more than 2000 colony forming units per 100 ml. [ 2 ]
The Cape Town water crisis in South Africa was a multi-year period in 2015–2020 of water shortage in the Western Cape region, most notably affecting the City of Cape Town. Dam water levels began decreasing in 2015 and the Cape Town water crisis peaked during mid-2017 to mid-2018 when water levels hovered between 14 and 29 percent of total dam ...
Communal tap (standpost) for drinking water in Soweto, Johannesburg, South Africa. May 2005. Groundwater plays a key role in sustaining water supplies and livelihoods in sub-Saharan Africa especially due to its widespread availability, generally high quality, and intrinsic ability to buffer episodes of drought and increasing climate variability.