Water everywhere but not a drop to drink — how unchecked leaks exacerbate Johannesburg’s water crisis

Had you been on Dorset Road in Randburg during the past two weeks, you would have seen a wide trail of water flowing out of two holes in the tar.

On Monday, 27 January, as security guards helped learners cross the pedestrian crossing outside Jan Celliers Primary School, water flowed 100m down the road, just days after Joburg Water had repaired a burst pipe nearby.

It would be 13 days before the latest leak was repaired.



According to Joburg Water’s latest figures, 26.5% of the treated drinking water it buys from Rand Water is lost daily through physical leaks and burst pipes — largely due to ageing infrastructure.

This means that 463 million litres of clean drinking water are being lost daily due to physical causes alone, enough to fill 185 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Joburg Water says it receives an average of 100 reports of burst pipes or leaks every day.

To understand the scale of this crisis, Daily Maverick investigated the water leak in Dorset Road.

Treated drinking water ran down Dorset Road for nearly two weeks, but leaks here are nothing new. Hendrik Viljoen, the facilities manager at Jan Celliers Primary School, said leaks had occurred on the road multiple times a year for as long as he had worked there — 18 years.



Using a basic flow test, Daily Maverick estimated that this single leak wasted around 4,500 litres of drinking water daily. By the time it was repaired on 9 February — 13 days after it started — at least 56,160 litres had been lost, enough to supply a household with free basic water for more than nine months.

Each household is entitled to 6,000 litres per month as part of the free basic water policy, equating to 25 litres per person daily for essential use (drinking, cooking and hygiene).

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Viljoen reported the leak at least four times during the two weeks it lasted and has a decade-long paper trail of similar reports for the same road.

Response time

Joburg Water said its standard response time for leaks and burst pipes was 48 hours.

However, Viljoen said leaks on Dorset Road typically took about two weeks to be fixed.

A burst underground pipe forms two holes in the tar, with water bubbling up to the surface and running down Dorset Road. (Photo: Julia Evans)

Joburg Water operates 10 depots across six regions, with about 300 teams repairing water and sewer systems. In the 2023–2024 financial year, the utility repaired 54,385 burst pipes.

When a pipe bursts, the water flowing down the road is only part of the problem — much of it seeps underground, causing structural and environmental damage.

“The repercussions of leaks and water shedding could be far worse than what we’re experiencing with electricity [load shedding] — simply because water interacts with so many other things in the environment,” said Adesola Ilemobade, professor of water and infrastructure at Wits University’s School of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Ilemobade said many parts of Johannesburg had dolomitic undersoil. When exposed to moisture, this soil dissolves over time, creating underground cavities and increasing the risk of sudden ground collapses.

“Like a tooth cavity that erodes unchecked for years — until one day, you bite into a nut and it caves in,” said Ilemobade. “That’s what happens with dolomitic soils.

“If a leaking pipe goes unchecked in a community built on dolomitic ground, something will eventually give. We’ve seen cases where one day a house is standing and the next it’s collapsed — swallowed by a cavity that formed over years.”

A pothole beginning to form due to persistent water leaks from an underground pipe in Dorset Road, Randburg. (Photo: Julia Evans)

Leaks like the ones on Dorset Road, where new ones sometimes appear just 2m from a recent repair, are not uncommon in Johannesburg.

“Infrastructure can fail in different ways,” said Ilemobade. “If a pipe is old and compromised, repairing one section won’t stop another part from failing.”

Many of Johannesburg’s water pipes, particularly within 20km of the city centre, are made of galvanised iron, which rusts over time. Some pipes have been in the ground for 50 years. The combination of ageing pipes, pressure fluctuations caused by water shedding, and soil interactions contributed to pipe failures, said Ilemobade.

A long-term, sustainable solution would be to replace pipelines. However, as Ilembade pointed out, this is no small task.

“Joburg Water manages a network of 12,500km of water pipelines,” he said. “My suspicion is that they’d rather repair, because it’s a short-term, cheaper solution.”

Funding gap

Joburg Water’s Asset Management Plan recommends renewing 2% of the city’s water infrastructure annually, but because of funding shortages, only 0.9% is being renewed. The city faces a R27-billion backlog in upgrading essential infrastructure, with water mains replacement alone estimated to cost R3.3-billion.

The utility’s capital expenditure budget of R1.2-billion is insufficient for these upgrades.

With 26% of its infrastructure expected to reach the end of its lifespan within the next decade, Joburg Water estimates that R3.1-billion is needed annually over the next 10 years to replace and upgrade the infrastructure.

Read more: With a R27bn infrastructure upgrades backlog, Joburg Water takes financial reins back from city

Ferrial Adam, the executive manager of WaterCAN, an initiative of the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse, said that while the Department of Water and Sanitation had prioritised addressing non-revenue water, including leaks, the focus remained on cutting illegal connections in informal settlements, where many residents still lacked adequate water access.

Read more: Johannesburg’s water supply crisis: Phumla Mqashi residents battle scarcity and health risks daily

“With 25% of water loss in the city due to leaks, the primary focus should be on fixing them,” Adam said. “Instead, attention is on informal settlements, deepening mistrust between residents, the city and Joburg Water.”

Adam attributed much of the current crisis to more than a decade of neglect.

“To fix it, we need political will. The funds are there, but not being spent correctly,” she said, urging Joburg Water to increase its budget for infrastructure upgrades, deploy more teams to respond to leaks on time, and for the city to table WaterCAN’s petition demanding urgent increases in water infrastructure funding.

Until Joburg Water invests in the necessary funding and infrastructure upgrades, residents will continue to watch their streets flood while their taps run dry. DM

To report a leak contact your  ward councillor or report the leak to Joburg Water:

Online: jwfaultlogging.jwater.co.za
Call Centre: 011 688 1699 / 086 0562874
SMS: 45201
Email: [email protected] or [email protected]

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