The stated objective of the Act is to promote a consistent and effective management of the nation's water resources, with special regard for surface waters. To this effect, various planning mechanisms are provided for in the statute. A Water Economy Working Plan is to provide the policy framework for more detailed water sector planning. Such Plan covers surface waters, and contains the basic guidelines for the development and conservation of the resource, and a time-frame for implementation. The Plan is to be coordinated with the National Environmental Plan, and reviewed every four years. The Minister of Transport and Public Works is responsible for tabling the working plan in Parliament (sect. 3). The framework Working Plan is complemented by a State Water Management Plan, provincial water management plans, and other water management plans. State and provincial plans cover, respectively, surface waters under state control and surface waters under Provincial Government control. The former is the joint responsibility of the Ministers of, respectively, Transport and Public Works, and Housing, Planning and the Environment. The plan for waters under state control is to spell out, among other things, the destination of use of surface waters, a phased programme for the development, use and conservation of the resource, including a time-frame for implementation; and indication of the financial resources required and of the relevant source.
Such plan is subject to review once in at least four years and it is published in the Official Gazette. Provisions are made for public comment and review of the drafts of such plan, and for the necessary coordination with the Working Plan and with the provincial plans (sects. 5, 6). Provincial water management plans mirror in scope the Plan for State Waters. In addition, however, provincial plans are required to take into account established policies for groundwater resources management (Editors note: groundwater resources are the province of a separate statute, Act No. 392 of 1981). Also provincial plans are to be reviewed with the same frequency as the plan for State waters. More detailed rules as to the formation of such plans are left for the provincial governments to make (sects. 7 and 8). At below provincial government level, government authorities respectively in charge of water quality protection and water quantity management are to prepare management plans outlining programmes to be carried out by such authorities. Provincial governments oversee this planning activity, and see to the necessary coordination among the various authorities concerned (sect. 9). In addition to these planning mechanisms, the statute provides for, among other things, the registration of all surface water abstractors (sects. 12-15); for the licensing of all such abstractors when their abstraction has a detrimental impact on the water source (sects. 24-33);for coordination amongst government authorities in charge of water quantity management, to be effected through the instrument of a 'water agreement' (sects. 17-23); and for the grant of special powers to the government under emergency circumstances due to shortage or overabundance of water, or water quality degradation (sects. 34-39).