The south african government has a policy for rural water supply that effectively translates into supplying all rural communities with piped water. Being a relatively arid country, the implication of this is that many community water supplies are dependent on ground water and more and more ground water schemes are being developed. The paper documents the experiences of a project funded by the Government of Norway (NORAD Programme) and managed by the South African Department of Water Affairs and Forestry (DWAF). The aim of the project is to provide DWAF wilth guidelines on establishing a groundwater management system for community water supplies. The project forms part of a programme that has the overall objective of improving the sustainability of rural groundwater supplies. The project has involved piloting the establishment of groundwater monitoring systems in two separate areas with a total of 35 boreholes being monitored. Some of the schemes are being operated by community based water committees and others are operated directly by local government. Within the overall objective of improving sustainability, the motivation for monitoring ground water is a combination of operational and resource management considerations. From an operational perspective, it gives an early warning system for when equipment is not functioning correctly and allows action to be taken before the system fails. By monitoring the performance of the aquifer, one can preempt failure of the system from over abstraction and be in a position to know which ground water resources are under utilized and have the potential for further development. The nature of South African geology is such that most boreholes for community water supplies are drilled into hard rock aquifers and are relatively deep (40 to 120m). Most recommended long-term pumping rates are based on one or two day pumping tests. These tests give an indication of the potential yield but due to the nature of fractured hard rock aquifers, it is only possible to establish the actual sustainable yield by monitoring water levels and abstraction over much longer time periods.
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