Unsafe water is no longer confined to rural communities — it is a widespread national risk, reaching taps and water storage tanks in households and schools across South Africa, according to results from the 2025 WaterCAN Citizen Science Testing Week. Now in its fourth year, the campaign, run in September, mobilised volunteers across all nine provinces to collect samples from taps, storage tanks, rivers, dams and boreholes, creating one of the largest independent snapshots of the country’s water quality. Across 125 tested sources, the results were “deeply concerning”, saidWaterCAN, a civil society initiative that champions water justice.
Gauteng recorded 39 unsafe samples out of 59; KwaZulu-Natal 16 out of 21; the Free State five out of seven; the Eastern Cape seven out of 12; the North West four out of nine; and the Northern Cape two out of three. In the Western Cape, most tested sources were also unsafe for human consumption. WaterCAN emphasised that the contamination is driven by several interconnected failures: untreated or partially treatedsewageenteringrivers, dams and groundwater; failing municipal drinking water systems, particularly where tap water tested positive for E.
coli; and unsafe household storage in water storage tanks common in rural and township areas. “A lot of our testers who test monthly were doing the tests over September, so it is telling that these issues are not going away,” said WaterCAN executive directorFerrial Adam. “They are not once-off.” Weak or inconsistent chlorine disinfection and poor routine municipal testing further worsen the risks.
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“South Africans should not second-guess whether the water from their taps and tanks is safe to drink,” saidNomsa Daele, the non-profit’s citizen science and training coordinator. “When our community testers are picking up E. coli in household drinking water in eight municipalities, it is deeply concerning.
The true extent of this crisis is likely much worse.” More than 500 WaterCAN citizen science test kits were distributed to community volunteers. In most provinces, 66% of tested sources were unsafe for human consumption. “In Limpopo, for example, all four sampled sources — a tap, a river and two other domestic sources in Waterberg and Mopani — were unsafe,” Daele said.
The findings identified unsafe tap samples in municipalities such as Sedibeng, King Cetshwayo, Gert Sibande, Waterberg and Bojanala Platinum, as well as unsafe or warning-level JoJo tanks and other domestic sources in Johannesburg, Gert Sibande, Waterberg, Mopani and Pixley ka Seme. In Gauteng, unsafe results included municipal taps and JoJo tanks, alongside extensivecontamination in rivers and dams. In KwaZulu-Natal,rivers were heavily contaminated, a tap in King Cetshwayo tested positive for E. coli and phosphate hotspots were evident.
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