GroundTruth

What commitments are you making to saving water?
Water is a vital, life-sustaining resource that is becoming increasingly scarce, posing significant challenges to ecosystems, industries, and human life🌍 Yet we still routinely use precious treated drinking water for purposes for which it is not required🚰
We need to recognize the value of water, especially treated drinking water, and act to protect and conserve it💧🌿

A great place to start is our own daily lives, where sustainable daily water use habits around toilets and kitchen activities can significantly lower water consumption without requiring major changes or investments. At GroundTruth, we are making small but significant changes.

1. We are switching from using potable municipal water supply to using rainwater for flushing toilets, achievable through installation of rainwater harvesting into tanks and some simple plumbing changes🌧️
2. We have installed outdoor “L'Uritonnoir” self-composting zero-water urinals♻️

So what are the impacts and benefits?
First, we’re saving precious treated water, which is critical in a severely water scarce country💧 But the advantages of water conservation go beyond immediate resource preservation. By reducing treated water wastage and harvesting local rainwater, we decrease the need for expensive and energetically demanding development and maintenance of water infrastructure like distribution networks, dams, and treatment plants⚡

Since implementation, we have noticed a big reduction in monthly costs and treated municipal water use. A quick calculation reveals the significance:

Assuming: the cost of treated, municipal water is R0.013 per litre; without urinals, there would be roughly 6 toilet flushes per person per day; and toilets use roughly 9 litres per flush. So:
▪️ Daily use: 26 people x 6 x 9 L per flush = 1,404 litres/day
▪️ Monthly use: 1,404 x 22 = 30,888 litres per month
▪️ Annual use: 30,888 x 12 = 370,656 litres per year
▪️ Monthly cost is 30,888 x 0.013 = R401.54
▪️ Annual cost saving is R401.54 x 12 = R4,818.53

Once scaled up to our other offices, we will take pressure off the grid and reduce our wastage of high quality, treating drinking water for simply flushing toilets by over 700,000 litres per year!🌊 A neat added bonus is the financial savings could increase to >R10,000 per year📈

Simple actions for sustainability can lead to meaningful positive change over time, saving money and water in the process🌱 By preserving water in small ways today, we can ensure its availability tomorrow.

🌍 Celebrating the International Day for Biological Diversity! 🌱

Today we are reminded that the health of our planet, our economies, and our communities is inseparable from the diversity of life that sustains them. Biodiversity is the foundation of resilient ecosystems and the cornerstone of human wellbeing, supporting food systems, water security, climate regulation, and cultural values.

At GroundTruth, the International Day for Biological Diversity feels like every day, because we are always working to deliver science-based, practical, and context-responsive solutions that safeguard biodiversity while supporting people and livelihoods 🌿

Conserving biodiversity is an integrated process that must align ecological integrity with social and economic realities. Across our six interconnected areas of expertise, GroundTruth works to address complex environmental challenges and opportunities💡
These areas collectively enable us to:
🔬 Assess and monitor ecosystems with scientific rigour
🌱 Design and implement restoration and rehabilitation strategies
💧 Support sustainable land and water management practices
📊 Inform policy, planning, and governance processes
🤝 Facilitate meaningful stakeholder engagement
🚀 Translate knowledge into actionable, on-the-ground solutions

This integrated approach allows us to move beyond isolated interventions, towards systemic solutions that restore landscapes, strengthen ecosystem services, and enhance human wellbeing.

On this International Day for Biological Diversity, we celebrate the richness of life on Earth and our collective responsibility to protect and restore it 🌍✨ The challenges are significant, but so too are the opportunities to create pathways that are regenerative, inclusive, and future-focused.

We believe that meaningful change happens through partnership🤝 Join us in shaping a future where biodiversity thrives, ecosystems are restored, and people prosper.

🌊 Exciting news — we've just published a new report!
We're thrilled to share our latest technical report: "Model Framework for a Citizen Science Water Monitoring System in the Limpopo River Basin" 👉 https://cgspace.cgiar.org/items/78374186-5fb0-49a7-8c67-1bfcc1c632eb
Water scarcity, declining quality, and climate pressures are hitting the Limpopo River Basin hard — but critical data gaps are making it even harder to respond. This report presents a practical, real-world framework to help close those gaps by putting communities at the centre of water monitoring.

💡 So what's the big idea?
The framework uses a six-step, iterative approach that combines:
🤝 Partnerships
🎓 Capacity building
👥 Community-driven monitoring
📊 Open, FAIR data systems
🛰️ A basin Digital Twin for near real-time insights
One of the most exciting innovations? Linking incentivised citizen-generated data to digital decision-support tools — turning information into action, and making sure communities aren't just data collectors, but active participants in water governance.

🌍 This is bigger than monitoring. It's about fairness.
✅ Communities help shape the evidence base
✅ Data systems are open and actionable
✅ Decision-making becomes more equitable and responsive

Dive into the report to see how the framework operates in reality in the Limpopo River basin, where transboundary inclusive water monitoring and management operates through incentivisation for community-driven stewardship through UNICEF Yoma World, capacity building through The Environmental Learning Research Centre Rhodes University and Yoma World Green Learn-to-Earn Pathway, and digital innovation for informed evidence driven water governance through the CGIAR Limpopo Watercourse Commission (LIMCOM) Digital Twin.

📢 While rooted in the Limpopo, this framework is designed to scale globally, supporting water security, climate resilience, and the SDGs across river basins worldwide. 💧
We hope it helps pave the way for more inclusive, just transitions to a water-secure future — across Africa and beyond.
Huge thanks to our incredible partners: CGIAR Accelerator for Digital Transformation, International Water Management Institute (IWMI), The Association for Water and Rural Development (AWARD), and funder Enabel.

👉 Get in touch if you'd like to partner with GroundTruth to drive inclusive and resilient water systems!

IWMI