The Kalahari Village Water Committee
Kgotla meeting in a settlement of 640 people on the eastern edge of the Kalahari. The borehole yields 4,800 litres a day in the dry season; the diesel pump fails roughly one day in five. A pipeline to the nearest village 22 km away would cost three times what the community has saved, and the district council has offered only a third of the remaining cost. Rainfall averages 450 mm, almost all between December and March, and the pan outside the village holds water for about six weeks after good rains. Households currently use about 9 litres per person per day, but the clinic alone needs 200 litres daily and the primary school 150. Cattle owners want a trough at the borehole.
1. Calculate the dry-season daily water available per person if the clinic and school needs are met first. Then judge whether the committee should approve the cattle trough.
Read the worked answer
Step 1 - protected uses. Clinic 200 L + school 150 L = 350 L/day. That leaves 4,800 − 350 = 4,450 L/day for households.
Step 2 - per person. 4,450 ÷ 640 ≈ 6.95 L per person per day, below the current 9 L and far below the 20–25 L commonly used as a basic service benchmark. The village is already short.
Step 3 - the pump risk. If the pump fails one day in five, average reliable supply is about 4,800 × 0.8 = 3,840 L/day, or roughly 5.5 L per person once the clinic and school are served. Any allocation must be planned against this lower figure, not the headline yield.
Judgement. Approve the trough only if it is conditional: (a) a reserve of at least 350 L is guaranteed to clinic and school before any livestock draw; (b) the trough is metered, so cattle use is visible and can be cut in a failure month; (c) a maintenance fund and spare pump parts are in place before the trough is built, because livestock income is what would pay for repairs; (d) the pan water and rainwater tanks are counted as dry-season buffers. Unconditional approval would push households below 7 L/day and put the clinic at risk. The pipeline is not affordable now, so demand management plus a repair fund is the defensible choice.
2. A councillor argues that because the pipeline would 'solve everything', the village should refuse the trough and wait. Assess this reasoning using the numbers given.
Read the worked answer
The argument assumes a solution that is not funded. The community has saved one third of the cost; the council has offered one third of what remains after that, so at most two thirds of the total is covered and a gap of roughly one third remains with no identified source. Waiting therefore means indefinite delay while the borehole fails one day in five.
Waiting also has a cost that is easy to ignore: at 6.95 L per person per day the village is already below basic service, and each pump failure day cuts average supply to about 5.5 L per person. Health risks at the clinic and lost school days are real costs of delay, not neutral pauses.
A stronger argument is staged investment: build the trough with metering and a repair fund now, keep saving for the pipeline, and use the cattle owners' contribution as evidence of community commitment when applying for the missing third. The councillor's conclusion (refuse the trough) does not follow from the premise (the pipeline is better) - a good long-term option does not make a workable short-term option wrong.