Blue Drop Reports 2010-2023: South African Municipal Drinking Water Quality Management

This collection of reports brings together the Blue Drop Certification reports published by the Department of Water Affairs, later the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS), between 2010 and 2023. Blue Drop Certification was introduced on 11 September 2008 as an incentive-based regulation programme for municipal drinking water quality management, and was later complemented by risk-based regulation through the Blue Drop Progress Assessment Tool (PAT) and Blue Drop Risk Rating (BDRR). Water Services Authorities and their water supply systems were audited against Blue Drop requirements covering water safety planning, process management and control, drinking water quality compliance with SANS 241, management accountability and asset management, with water use efficiency (No Drop) criteria added in 2014. Results were reported per water supply system as report cards that included Blue Drop scores, design and operational capacity, population served, per capita consumption, and microbiological and chemical compliance, together with provincial and national summaries and performance logs. The number of systems audited grew from 402 in 2009 to 1036 in 2014, and the national Blue Drop score rose from 51.4% (2009) to 87.6% (2012) before declining to 79.6% (2014). The 2022 PAT report covered 144 Water Services Authorities and 1186 water supply systems for the period 1 July 2020 to 30 June 2021, and the 2023 report presented the full audit for the period 1 July 2021 to 30 June 2022. The collection comprised the full 2010, 2022 and 2023 reports, the Free State chapter of the 2011 report, the introductory and national overview chapters of the 2012 report, and the executive summary, national overview and annexures of the 2014 report. Data were provided as published PDF reports; system-level tables were not extracted into machine-readable form.