Financial Provisions

Water charges are used as a means of encouraging reduction in waste, and provision is made for incentives for effective and efficient water use.

The pricing strategy may contain a strategy for setting water use charges for funding the following activities:

    water management and related costs like gathering information, monitoring water resources and their use, controlling water resources, water conservation and water resource protection, including the discharge of waste and the protection of the Reserve.
    water resource development and use of waterworks
    achieving the equitable and efficient allocation of water

A pricing strategy established may differentiate among geographical areas, categories of water users or individual water users. It may differentiate in respect of different geographic areas, on the basis of:

    socio-economic aspects within the area in question
    the physical attributes of each area
    the demographic attributes of each area.

The pricing strategy may amongst other things differentiate in respect of different types of water uses, on the basis of:

    the manner in which water is taken, supplied, discharged or disposed of
    whether the use is consumptive or non-consumptive
    the assurance and reliability of supply and water quality
    the effect of return flows on a water resource
    the extent of the benefit to be derived from the development of a new water resource
    the class and the resource quality objectives of the water resource in question
    the required quality of the water to be used.

In respect of different water users, the water pricing strategy may differentiate on the basis of:

    the extent of their water use
    the quantity of the water returned by them to a water resource
    their economic circumstances
    the statistical probability of the supply of water to them.