At the edge of the Atlantic, the blackened sea gave way to sandstone remnants of an ancient river valley floor, now suspended impossibly in the sky. These were the same Table Mountain monuments I saw twelve hours before. With boarding pass in hand, passengers filed down the metal jet bridge fashioned with askew glossy photos of dream destinations, including (most appropriately) Cape Town.
South Africa greeted me with golden light and long winter shadows stretching for the eastern horizon. The air was still and clear. I found bodily comfort from the topographic rise and fall of the earth, maybe distantly familiar to my home landscape of the Rocky Mountains.
I unexpectedly spent two months in Cape Town preparing a vehicle for travel across the country. The day of my arrival was an anomaly. The following weeks returned to habituated cloud-guarded skies and rain, heavy rain. From the backseat of Uber rides, conversations about the weather repeated across African accents- South African, Zimbabwean, Malawian, Zambian. Floodplains were swollen, pregnant with rivers. The rain suffocated street sewers and rendered neighborhoods without power for weeks.
All the while, grasses grew wildly. The tree canopy cast darkness through emerald-black leaves. The earth seemed to find rhythm in water rolling off the banana tree leaves. The breath of the city also shifted. People darted from awning to awning in a gamble with the rain. We lingered longer in the shelter of cafes, with the honey scent of rooibos hanging on hot steam.
This time also brought surmounting waves of anxiety. It was the ambiguous “can’t quite put a finger on it” type that burrows into the gut, the legs, and the mind. It brought tossing night after night, over consumption of news media, and constant tapping heel to floor while I was seated. Without reprieve, the flat grew rank with the smell of mildew. It was dreary.
The Land Rover we had been preparing finally gave into our perseverance. To the hum of a diesel engine, we climbed the coastal mountains with rain streaming in through the windows and windshield. With each kilometer, the gray ceiling begrudgingly lifted. Along with it, the landscape morphed from fynbos shrublands, to rolling agricultural fields ablaze with blooming canola, to expansive drylands.
Fynbos shrublands ascending out of the Western Cape coastal region. Photo Credit: Alaina Geibig
We stopped in the Little Karoo Desert to camp. The air was sharpened-cold, but the sun was bright overhead. It was that light that bounces from the sandy soils, making you squint with watery eyes. The flora was like that of western Colorado. The leaves were muted in color as if coated with dust, and the air lingered with a warm, earthen scent- sagebrush. Aloe, grown slowly and radially, sent large spikes from the center outwards much like yucca. And to my untrained eyes, some succulents, adorned in thorns and tiny brown hairs, were imperceptibly familiar to the prickly pear cactus. For moments, I forgot I was worlds away.
Land Rover camp in the Little Karoo. Photo Credit: Alaina Geibig
The twilight skies silenced the howling wind, revealing the nebulous brilliance of the Milky Way. Familiar winter constellations were lost with indifference among the thick blanket of stars. From the warmth of my sleeping bag, the Little Karoo fell deceptively silent at night. I listened carefully for the insect hum. There was no coyote calls cast across the valley, no wary owl hooting, no croaking toads.
Finding similarities despite differences is the core of my summer project. Legal systems, like ecosystems, are reflective of the conditions around them. Where water scarcity is a risk, these systems typically aim to clarify who maintains access during low water periods. The underlaying structures to accomplish this can look remarkably similar. For example, both the US and South Africa water codes seek to quantify and allocate water use. Though the language is slightly different — water right versus water license, respectively– the aim is the same: identify how much water is being used and how much (if any) is available for others.
Little Karoo flora. Photo Credit: Alaina Geibig
Through my conversations with South Africa legal scholars, we found common challenges that each water allocation system faces. Most simply, we recognized that there is a growing number of water users and decreasing predictability of water availability. In both systems, we identified that the burden of this scarcity typically falls on under-resourced individuals, including the poor and smallholders.
Yet, in the same way that the aloe is not the yucca, these legal systems appear similar but are separated by the contexts that form them. One cannot simply graft limbs from one onto the other. Therefore, creating more equitable water allocation systems is highly dependent on understanding the history that each legal system grew from.
In South Africa, the end of apartheid ignited reconciliation initiatives across areas of law. This included the restructuring of water allocation from a system that primarily benefited white landowners to one that ensures basic water allocation for all citizens. I think of this as flipping the hierarchy through a new constitution. Comparatively, the US remains strongly rooted in the fifth amendment. Therefore, legal reallocation of water (if not voluntary and/or compensated) skirts suspiciously close to violating one’s protected right to property.
Understanding these ideological differences clarifies why the US favors market-based approaches for water reallocation. It leans into the property model by making water rights tradeable or saleable between users. If supply and demand have their way, water will move towards the most efficient use—conveniently avoiding the courts.
Though, one must not conflate efficiency and equity. This market model largely fails to explain how to shift resources towards historically excluded water groups, including indigenous tribes and the environment. Therefore, we observe limited, albeit hard fought, success stories of transferring water rights (typically from agricultural use) to these groups in perpetuity.
Still, I do not credit a free market for laudable successes such as the Columbia, Deschutes, Walker, Yumba river basins. Instead, I credit state law that determines if transfers and sales are permissible, what users can receive those rights, and if the water rights maintain their priority relative to other users during droughts.
Reframing water allocation as a market guided bylegal structure broadens my understanding of problem solving. A water market is not bound to the theories of economics but rather can be a reflection of our social values. This enables the injection of water reallocation strategies in accordance with our social and environmental realities. Reinstating flows in over allocated river basins is an example of such.
I was expecting my time in South Africa to illuminate the water reform tools that are ripe for adoption in the US. Unexpectedly, my conversations with experts encouraged me to appreciate the differences between the codes. It is in the nuance of each legal landscape that I find people who are committed to equitable water allocation through testing new applications of existing legal tools, pushing for reform of old laws, and forging new legislation. Through the generous conversations I had with experts and citizens alike, I am grateful for the perspectives that expanded my understanding of water access.
Alaina Geibig, Research Assistant and WCC Coordinator | Alaina is a Master of Environmental Management candidate interested in water resource management in drylands landscapes. More specifically, Alaina is interested in the environmental and social dimensions of water allocation and climate change. Prior to attending Yale School of the Environment, Alaina spent three years exploring the intersection of public land conservation, food cultivation, and rural community resilience as an AmeriCorps volunteer in Western Colorado. She holds a B.A. in psychology from the University of Puget Sound. In her free time, you can find Alaina (and her dog) grazing at the farmers market, dipping in cold lakes, or sipping tea. See what Alaina has been up to. | Blog
