The Joburg champion tackling the city’s water crisis

Johannesburg’s water crisis has become an unavoidable part of daily life, a silent emergency that most residents navigate with buckets, bottles and backup plans. But for Ikhira Dawood, a master’s student and environmental researcher at the University of Witwatersrand (Wits), this crisis is more than an inconvenience. It’s a call to action.

Dawood, originally from KwaZulu-Natal, has experienced water outages in three different Joburg regions since moving into the city of gold. Each water outage has exposed a deeper problem in the system. This sparked a fire in her and a determination to understand why the system is failing, and what solutions could exist for the city’s future and its residents.

“For many people in Joburg, water outages have become a forced coping mechanism,” she says.

“It’s become part of everyday life.”

From planning ahead to fill bottles before taps run dry, to adjusting daily cooking routines and hygiene practices, residents are constantly negotiating uncertainty.

“There’s this constant background build-up of; Do I need to collect more water? Do I have enough?”

A research project born out of real-life struggles

Ikhira began her research earlier this year as part of her two-year master’s program, mainly focusing on the seven administrative regions of Johannesburg. Her work is driven by a simple but urgent reality.

“South Africa does not have its own abundant water source, and Joburg’s ageing infrastructure is struggling to cope, which is really an issue,” she said.

To understand the crisis, she is collecting three layers of data. Firstly, she collects water outages data from Joburg Water. She uses the data to see how often these outages occur, how long they last, and what solutions (if any) are implemented.

Secondly, she collects climate data from local weather stations. This data is used to calculate how the human body perceives heat. Thirdly, she collects surveys with the aim to understand people’s experiences with these challenges.

The unequal burden of Joburg’s water crisis

What strikes her most is the inequality embedded in this crisis. “People experience outages so differently,” she says.

Some residents can buy bottled water, use air-cons to cool down, or store large containers at home. But many cannot.

For thousands, coping measure with these challenges means, walking kilometres to fetch water, spending scarce money on public transport, purchasing bottled water that they cannot always afford, and facing physical strain in extreme heat.

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“If someone is experiencing heat stress, they can’t cool themselves down without water, “she explains. “It becomes both a health risk and a financial burden.”

For Ikhira, this research is more than an academic project, it is an act of service to a city she now calls home. She believes that understanding the intersection of climate change, infrastructure and lived experience is key to building resilient communities.

Her commitment to finding solutions is grounded in empathy and science, and her hope is that the findings will lead to better planning, targeted support and heat-aware maintenance schedules to ease the burden for those affected by Joburg’s constant water outages.

• This story was produced by Our City News, a non-profit newsroom that serves the people of Johannesburg.