62
TECHNICAL
How Cape Town and other
municipalities refuse to
accept a day without water
The South African City of Cape Town has implemented several measures
to save water, to eliminate Day Zero. Although Day Zero has been
postponed to 2019, the City still faces a challenge to conserve water.
By Matt Chapuran
Russ Chaney
In the spirit of the sharing
of unique experiences
that shape the plumbing
industries in our respective
nations, the following article
looks at steps that Cape
Town, South Africa, is
taking to avoid being the
world’s first major city to run
out of fresh water. Written
by IAPMO correspondent
Matt Chapuran, it is the
next in a regular series of
similar articles that will run in
this magazine.
Overall, the City has seen progress, citing a drop of 400
million litres each day in the past year. The increased roll-out
of pressure management interventions alone has resulted in
savings of 50MLD over the past two months. However, the
crisis is far from solved, with usage in March at 516MLD.
The City is warning its residents that if it cannot reach
its target of 450MLD, there is a chance that the National
Department of Water and Sanitation may impose even more
stringent restrictions on Cape Town in November.
The City of Cape Town’s website is alive with information
about how the impending water crisis affects everything
from attending sporting events to washing pets. Cape
Town’s stated ambition is to restrict personal water use
to 50 litres a day, including three litres for drinking, nine
for flushing the toilet, and 10 for a daily shower. (A poster
distributed through the Cape Town website provides ways
to save additional water. A sponge bath cuts six litres from
the daily allotment.)
A photo of a Cape Town
reservoir.
On 13 March, the government of Cape Town
announced new measures to conserve water. Since
2014, the city has installed 115 automated pressure
zones, designed to reduce consumption, in part by
keeping pressure at a level that protects pipes from
bursting and leaks.
September 2018 Volume 24 I Number 7
This crisis did not develop overnight. According to NASA,
“Population growth and a lack of new infrastructure have
exacerbated the current water shortage. Between 1995
and 2018, Cape Town’s population swelled by roughly 80
per cent. During the same period, dam storage increased
by just 15 per cent.” NASA’s website shares imagery
showing the decrease in capacity in Cape Town’s six major
reservoirs from January 2014, when Theewaterskloof
Dam, the largest of the six reservoirs, was at full capacity,
to January 2018. During that period, the dam fell from full
to just 27 per cent of total capacity.
Some scientists suggest that this shortage is the direct
result of three consecutive years of drought, circumstances
that are unlikely to return to Cape Town in 1 000 years, and
others suggest that a resurgent rainy season can restore
the reservoirs and avert disaster. “We have always had a
level of water restrictions in place as we are situated in a
water-scarce region and we will continue to have restrictions
in place,” says Cllr Xanthea Limberg, the City’s mayoral
committee member for Informal Settlements, Water and
Waste Services; and Energy.
“Our tough conditions remain,” Limberg says. “It is difficult
to predict how much winter rain for 2018 (our main rain
season) we will receive, and also what will happen in
2019. We are therefore focusing on stretching our limited
supplies and finding ways to augment water supply through
groundwater usage, recycling, and temporary reverse
osmosis modular desalination plants.”
Certainly, the tone in Cape Town remains upbeat. Its
webpage’s “Vision for Homes and Families” promises,
“Cape Town has been one of the fastest growing cities
in South Africa in terms of urbanisation and we think it is
quite clear why everyone wants to live, work, and explore
in Cape Town. We want all our citizens to have roofs over
their heads and food in their bellies.”
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