- South Africa 2026
- Annex B
Data appendix
The indicator set with its sources, the source registers, the licences of every kind of material and the formats of the edition.
Contents
- ·Edition home
- ·Executive summary
- 1South Africa’s risk runs through its pipes and its grid
- 2Key findings
- 3Systems and sectors at baseline
- 4Risks and capability
- 5Power shortfall and wastewater stress in a dense province
- 6Readings from the other desks
- 7The 2027 agenda
- 8Systems in depth
- AMethodology
- BData appendix
- CReferences and record
- ·Complete edition, for print
B.1The indicator set
| Indicator | Value | Unit | Year | State | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GHG emissions excl. land use (sum of sectors) | 478.3 | Mt CO₂e | 2022 | Estimated | 2 |
| GHG emissions incl. land use (sum of sectors) | 435.1 | Mt CO₂e | 2022 | Estimated | 2 |
| Energy sector emissions | 374.1 | Mt CO₂e | 2022 | Reported | 2 |
| Land-use sink | 43.2 | Mt CO₂e | 2022 | Reported | 2 |
| 2035 range incl. land use | 320 to 380 | Mt CO₂e | 2035 | Reported | 3 |
| Energy shed by load-shedding | 749 | GWh | H1 2025 | Reported | 5 |
| Fleet energy availability factor | 58 | % | H1 2025 | Reported | 5 |
| Wastewater systems in a critical state | 47 | % | 2025 | Reported | 9 |
| Non-revenue water | 47.3 | % | 2025 | Reported | 9 |
| Maize harvest forecast | 17.1 | million t | 2026 | Reported | 7 |
| Population | 63.5 | million | 2026 | Reported | 1 |
| Aged 60 or over | 10.7 | % | 2026 | Reported | 1 |
| People living with HIV | 7.8 | million | 2026 | Reported | 1 |
| Life expectancy at birth, men | 65.5 | years | 2026 | Reported | 1 |
| Life expectancy at birth, women | 71.0 | years | 2026 | Reported | 1 |
| Deaths in KwaZulu-Natal floods | 459 | deaths | 2022 | Reported | 14 |
| Deaths in Eastern Cape floods | 102 | deaths | 2025 | Reported | 15 |
| Renewable water per person | Not bound | m³ | n/a | NOT BOUND | 33 |
| Ecosystem threat status | Not bound | % | n/a | NOT BOUND | 13 |
| Household food insecurity | Not bound | % | n/a | NOT BOUND | 38 |
B.2National source register
The governed source set behind this edition. Each source keeps its authority, coverage, cadence and role; categories describe origin, not truth.
Domains bound by the register
- WAT
- ENE
- FOO
- HLT
- BIO
- CLI
- INF
- FIN
- TRD
- MIN
| Source | Category | Coverage | Period | Cadence | Role |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mid-year population estimates1 | national statistics | national | 2002–2026 | annual | profile · HLT |
| National inventory2 | national technical authority | national | 2000–2022 | periodic | CLI · ENE |
| Second NDC34 | government and independent assessment | national | 2035 | periodic | CLI |
| Electricity statistics56 | research council and think tank | national | 2025 | annual | ENE |
| Crop monitoring7 | UN agency | national | 2026 | periodic | FOO |
| Green, Blue and No Drop8910 | ministry | national and provincial | 2023–2025 | periodic | WAT |
| IMF country documents1112 | international body | national | 2025–2026 | annual | FIN |
| Biodiversity assessment13 | national agency | national | 2025 | periodic | BIO |
| Flood tolls1415 | provincial authorities via press | provincial | 2022 · 2025 | per event | CLI |
| Attribution and drought studies161718 | peer-reviewed | regional | 2018–2022 | per study | CLI |
| Legal texts2123242526 | government | national | 1998–2024 | per amendment | standards |
| Cross-checks and capacity statistics31323443 | UN agencies, IRENA and IEA | national | 2024–2026 | annual | listed as fill sources |
| Series records4849 | Reports series | series | 2026 | per edition | method and peers |
B.3Regional reading, South Africa by province
Map plates for every province follow in Q2 2027, when boundary sources and public-safe resolutions are bound. This page gives the regional reading in table form.
Selected populations, 20261
Gauteng
KwaZulu-Natal
Northern Cape
share of people in Gauteng
| Region | Principal hazards | Systems most exposed | Baseline evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gauteng | urban water loss, wastewater stress, grid dependence | finance, industry, water supply | non-revenue water9 |
| KwaZulu-Natal | floods, wastewater stress | ports, industry, housing | floods 202214 |
| Eastern Cape | floods, rural service gaps | rural communities, roads | floods 202515 |
| Western Cape | drought and water restriction | cities, irrigated farming | Day Zero crisis 201818 |
| Limpopo and Mpumalanga | wastewater results improved | power, mining, farming | Green Drop 20259 |
| Free State and Northern Cape | critical wastewater systems | small towns, farming | Green Drop 20259 |
B.4Atlas card, Eastern Cape
- province
- floods
- rural
- roads
- Systems in view
- water, roads, health and homes
- Defining events
- June 2025 floods, 102 deaths by the provincial count15
- Couplings
- CLI → INF; CLI → WAT; INF → HLT
- Capability evidence
- not bound
- Gaps
- recovery progress; wastewater condition; clinic continuity
- Agenda items
- A-01 · A-02
The share of Eastern Cape wastewater systems in a critical state rose from 39% to 54% between assessments [9].
WATER
Critical share of systems
Roads and bridges failed in the June 2025 floods, which delayed access to affected communities. Source for extent: not bound; blocker: not retrieved.
ROADS
Cut by floodwater
Clinic access during and after the floods is not bound. Source: provincial health department records. Blocker: not retrieved.
HEALTH
Clinic continuity
B.5South Africa system card
The card through which South Africa appears in the Africa regional edition and the global series. It summarises; it does not rank.
| System | Baseline state | Coupling to watch | Coverage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Water | many critical wastewater systems | power loss into water works | PARTIAL |
| Energy | load-shedding down; availability near 58% | supply shortfall | PARTIAL |
| Food | ample maize supply | drought and logistics | PARTIAL |
| Health | large HIV population on a long-term care path | service continuity in outages | PARTIAL |
| Biodiversity | assessment 2025 not bound | ecosystem condition | THIN |
Context
- Archetype
- upper-middle-income economy with a coal-dominated grid and strained water services
- Population
- 63.5 million (2026)1
- Trade
- maize exporter and wheat importer; wider trade not bound7
- Hazard
- floods with provincial death tolls1415
South Africa’s card sits beside its neighbours’; shared basins, grids, corridors and supply chains are read as one regional system.
AFRICA REGIONAL EDITION
One regional system
South African evidence enters the water, energy, food, finance and climate sector reports through the same finding identifiers, so a correction travels everywhere at once.
GLOBAL SECTOR SERIES
Same findings, same IDs
In the global edition South Africa is read against peer distributions and thresholds, never placed in a league table.
GLOBAL FLAGSHIP
Peers, not ranks
B.6Licences
| Material | Licence |
|---|---|
| Text | CC BY 4.0 |
| Data | on the licence of each source; Nexus tables CC BY 4.0 |
| Figures | Nexus figures CC BY 4.0; third-party as credited |
| Maps | boundary source and licence printed on each plate |
| Metadata | CC0 1.0, as Zenodo publishes it |
| Third-party data, figures and text | The source’s own licence, credited where it is used; never relicensed |
| Nexus-authored text, tables and figures: CC BY 4.0 (SPDX CC-BY-4.0). Map plates print their boundary source and licence. | |
B.7Formats and provenance
| Format | Kind | State | What it is | Identifier |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Web edition | HTML | On this site | Draft in stewardship review; every value resolves to its source. | NR-COUNTRY-ZAF-2026-BASELINE-v1.0.0 |
| Print edition | At release | A4 portrait · screen, print and archival PDF, signed with the web edition at release. | NR-COUNTRY-ZAF-2026-BASELINE-v1.0.0 | |
| Indicator data | CSV · JSON | On this site | 20 indicators with unit, year, status and source; the machine-readable copy ships with the evidence bundle at release. | NR-COUNTRY-ZAF-2026-BASELINE data release v1 |
| Figures | SVG · PNG | On this site | 4 on the web edition: headline figure, figure 1.3, coupling instrument, capability ladder. | FIG-COUNTRY-ZAF-2026-BASELINE-* |
| Slides | Not recorded | No slide deck is recorded for this edition. | ||
| Evidence brief | HTML · PDF | Not recorded | No evidence brief is recorded for this edition. | |
| Dataset with DOI | DataCite | At release | Concept and version DOI are minted at deposit; none is recorded yet. |
Provenance
- Edition pack
- The edition’s content pack (JSON), from which the print and web editions are built
- Evidence cut
- NQ-ZAF-2026-Q0-1, closed 30 September 2026
- Reproducibility
- sourced values cited; analytical values reproducible from stated parameters
- Self-check
- 14 of 23 at evidence close; a fail on any item blocks release
- Review
- five passes scheduled before release (in Annex C)
- Publisher of record
- The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI) for the Nexus Consortium
- Corrections
- Registry correction pathway; upheld corrections are published as notices with a new version
Notes
Numbers are the edition’s reference numbers, so a note reads the same in every chapter. The full list, with every source and its licence, is in Annex C. Annex C, references
- 2Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (ed.), GHG Inventory for South Africa: 2000–2022, 9th National Greenhouse Gas Inventory Report. DFFE, Pretoria, 2025.back
- 3Government of South Africa (ed.), Second Nationally Determined Contribution. Submission to the UNFCCC, 24 October 2025.back
- 5Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (ed.), “Loadshedding down 82% in H1 2025 as demand eases and EAF edges up, but tariffs still exceed inflation.” CSIR, Pretoria, 2025.back
- 9Parliamentary Monitoring Group (ed.), “Green, Blue and No Drop Reports 2025: Ministry briefing,” Portfolio Committee on Water and Sanitation, 9 June 2026. PMG, Cape Town, 2026.back
- 7Food and Agriculture Organization (ed.), GIEWS Country Brief: South Africa, reference date 22 April 2026. FAO, Rome, 2026.back
- 1Statistics South Africa (ed.), Mid-year population estimates 2026, Statistical release P0302. Stats SA, Pretoria, July 2026.back
- 14Bloomberg (ed.), “Death toll from flooding in South Africa’s KZN rises to 459.” Bloomberg News, 29 May 2022.back
- 15Eastern Cape Provincial Government (ed.), flood recovery update reporting 102 flood-related deaths. Reported by Pondoland Times, Eastern Cape, 2025.back
- 33Food and Agriculture Organization (ed.), AQUASTAT: South Africa country profile and water resources data. FAO, Rome.back
- 13South African National Biodiversity Institute (ed.), National Biodiversity Assessment 2025: summary of findings and key messages. SANBI, Pretoria, launched 9 December 2025.back
- 38Statistics South Africa (ed.), General Household Survey 2023, Statistical release P0318. Stats SA, Pretoria, 2024.back
- 4Climate Action Tracker (ed.), “South Africa: 2035 NDC.” Climate Analytics and NewClimate Institute, December 2025.back
- 6Ember (ed.), “South Africa: electricity country profile, 2025.” Ember, London, retrieved 2026-11-03.back
- 8Department of Water and Sanitation (ed.), Green Drop, Blue Drop and No Drop reports 2025, released 31 March 2026. DWS, Pretoria, 2026.back
- 10Department of Water and Sanitation (ed.), Blue Drop, Green Drop and No Drop reports 2023, released 5 December 2023. DWS, Pretoria, 2023.back
- 11International Monetary Fund (ed.), South Africa: 2025 Article IV Consultation, Country Report. IMF, Washington DC, February 2026.back
- 12International Monetary Fund (ed.), World Economic Outlook Update, July 2026. IMF, Washington DC, 2026.back
- 16I. Pinto et al., Rapid attribution study of the April 2022 heavy rainfall in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. World Weather Attribution, 2022.back
- 17F. E. L. Otto, P. Wolski, F. Lehner et al., “Anthropogenic influence on the drivers of the Western Cape drought 2015–2017,” Environmental Research Letters, vol. 13, 2018.back
- 18H. Muller, “Cape Town’s drought: don’t blame climate change,” Nature, vol. 559, pp. 174–176, 2018.back
- 21Government of South Africa (ed.), Climate Change Act, Act 22 of 2024. Pretoria, 2024.back
- 23Government of South Africa (ed.), Electricity Regulation Amendment Act, Act 38 of 2024. Pretoria, 2024.back
- 24Government of South Africa (ed.), Carbon Tax Act, Act 15 of 2019. Pretoria, 2019.back
- 25Government of South Africa (ed.), Disaster Management Act, Act 57 of 2002. Pretoria, 2002.back
- 26Government of South Africa (ed.), National Water Act, Act 36 of 1998. Pretoria, 1998.back
- 31UNAIDS (ed.), AIDSinfo: South Africa country data. UNAIDS, Geneva, 2026.back
- 32International Renewable Energy Agency (ed.), Renewable Capacity Statistics 2026. IRENA, Abu Dhabi, 2026.back
- 34United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (ed.), World Population Prospects 2024. UN DESA, New York, 2024.back
- 43International Energy Agency (ed.), Global Energy Review 2025. IEA, Paris, 2025.back
- 48S. Valadbaygi (ed.), Reports: The Foundational Edition, Volumes I and II. Reports series, Edition 2026–2030, V1.0. GCRI for the Nexus Consortium, Toronto, 2026.back
- 49S. Valadbaygi (ed.), Global Systems Risk & Resilience Report 2026: Baseline Edition. GCRI for the Nexus Consortium, Toronto, 2026.back
