South Africa has to cope with a varying freshwater supply. In doing so it has constructed over 500 dams that capture half of the countries annual rainfall. Despite this shortages do occur and are expected to become more prevalent due to a combination of population and economic growth and an increase in the variability in the freshwater supply. Researchers indicate that the current decision-making processes to govern the allocation and rationing of water are inadequate. The aim of this research is to gain understanding in the functioning of the South African water management and design an improvement for the allocation and rationing of water during periods of drought. The main research question for this research is as follows: how does water management work in South Africa? And how can decision-making on water management be improved?