The pressures created by the dynamics of South Africa's population exacerbate and mutually reinforce the effects of poverty and environmental change. Natural resources are depleted by population pressure and the need for residential land and services. Problems also include overgrazing, depletion of woodlands, deterioration of irrigation systems and overfishing.
Specific impacts listed here are in response to the pressures listed in the previous sections.
However, it is not just the numbers of people, but their consumption patterns, that have an impact on the environment. In South Africa, with its wide gap between rich and poor, extremes of consumption patterns exist which impact on the environment. Water usage in South Agrica provides an illustration of these concerns. Although an estimated 4.3 million households still do not have water services, the increase in demand for domestic and industrial water provision over the last four decades has been four times greater than that of the agricultural sector, which is currently still the largest consumer of water. Current projections estimate that serious shortfalls in water provision will occur within the next ten to twenty years.