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Jul 12, 2023 · The office vacancy rate is almost half Johannesburg’s. From 2017 to 2021 the city’s GDP growth rate tracked South Africa’s as a whole, but Cape Town’s officials reckon that over the next ...
Mar 5, 2018 · In 2014, the six dams were full, but then came three straight years of drought—the worst in more than a century. Now, according to NASA data, reservoirs stand at 26 percent of capacity, with the single largest, which provides half the city's water, in the worst shape.
- Overview
- Approaching “Day Zero”
- The Complications of Climate
- Other World Cities at Risk
- Political Miscalculations
The South African city plans to shut off the taps to 4 million people. But it's just one of many cities around the world facing a future with too little water.
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Editor's Note: Since this story was first published on February 2, the "Day Zero" when Cape Town is set to turn off its water supply has been moved back several times, first to May, and then even later. As of March 5, the day was set for July 15. The city has gotten “a slight reprieve” thanks to area fruit growers using up their annual water allocation, making more available for the city, and some water routing and conservation measures.
By summer, four million people in the city of Cape Town—one of Africa's most affluent metropolises—may have to stand in line surrounded by armed guards to collect rations of the region's most precious commodity: drinking water.
Population growth and a record drought, perhaps exacerbated by climate change, is sparking one of the world's most dramatic urban water crises, as South African leaders warn that residents are increasingly likely to face "Day Zero." That's the day, previously projected for mid-April but now mid-July, when the city says it will be forced to shut off taps to homes and businesses because reservoirs have gotten perilously low—a possibility officials now consider almost inevitable.
"The question that dominates my waking hours now is: When Day Zero arrives, how do we make water accessible and prevent anarchy?" says Helen Zille, former Cape Town mayor and the current premier of South Africa's Western Cape province, in a guest newspaper column published earlier this winter.
The situation seems to be worsening by the day.
The city is prepping 200 emergency water stations outside groceries and other gathering spots. Each would have to serve almost 20,000 residents. Cape Town officials are making plans to store emergency water at military installations, and say using taps to fill pools, water gardens, or wash cars is now illegal. Just this week, authorities stepped up water-theft patrols at natural springs where fights broke out, according to local press reports. They're being asked to crack down on "unscrupulous traders" who have driven up the price of bottled water.
For months, citizens have been urged to consume less, but more than half of residents ignored those volunteer restrictions. So earlier in January, the city requested even steeper cuts, asking residents to consume just 50 liters per day—less than one-sixth of what the average American uses. If consumption doesn't drop steeply and quickly, city officials warned this week, everyone will be forced into Day Zero, where all will have to live on far less—about 25 liters a day, less than typically used in four minutes of showering.
"I'm not sure if we'll be able to avert Day Zero," says Kevin Winter, lead researcher at an urban water group at the University of Cape Town. "We're using too much water, and we can't contain it. It's tragic."
The path to Cape Town's crisis is both typical—and not.
Much like southern California, South Africa is arid, but Cape Town's most recognizable land mass, Table Mountain, traps onshore breezes coming off warm ocean waters, creating local rains that power rivers and fill underground aquifers. It is an oasis surrounded by desert with a Mediterranean climate. Its beauty has driven populations skyward and brought increasing wealth and prosperity. There are pools and water parks and wineries and lush gardens, though even as the city modernized, hundreds of thousands still live in impoverished settlements. Unemployment tops 25 percent.
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About 3 million black shade balls covered the Ivanhoe Reservoir in the Silver Lake section of Los Angeles when this photo was taken in September 2009. Managers hoped the balls would cool the water, to decrease chemical reactions that were creating carcinogens.
About 3 million black shade balls covered the Ivanhoe Reservoir in the Silver Lake section of Los Angeles when this photo was taken in September 2009. Managers hoped the balls would cool the water, to decrease chemical reactions that were creating carcinogens.
Already, droughts in recent years have helped spark famine and unrest in rural nations around the Arabian Sea, from Iran to Somalia. But water crises are also threatening massive cities around the world.
Already, many of the 21 million residents of Mexico City only have running water part of the day, while one in five get just a few hours from their taps a week. Several major cities in India don't have enough. Water managers in Melbourne, Australia, reported last summer that they could run out of water in little more than a decade. Jakarta is running so dry that the city is sinking faster than seas are rising, as residents suck up groundwater from below the surface.
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How Cape Town's Residents Are Surviving the Water Crisis—For Now
Much like Cape Town's fiasco, reservoirs in Sao Paulo, Brazil, dropped so low in 2015 that pipes drew in mud, emergency water trucks were looted, and the flow of water to taps in many homes was cut to just a few hours twice a week. Only last-minute rains prevented Brazilian authorities from having to close taps completely.
"Sao Paulo was down to less than 20 days of water supply," says Betsy Otto, director of the global water program at the World Resources Institute. "What we're starting to see are the confluence of a lot of factors that might be underappreciated, ignored, or changing. Brought together, though, they create the perfect storm."
"Frankly, where it gets dangerous is the inability of our political institutions to keep up," says Geoff Dabelko, associate dean and director of the environmental studies program at Ohio University. "The overriding story of the coming decade is going to be about how well our institutions deal with the increased rate of change."
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The Lake That Slowly Vanished
In South Africa, the ruling African National Congress and the Democratic Alliance, the opposition party that runs the city, each have some responsibility for maintaining or administering water. Experts suggest that each made fundamental missteps.
"Both believed that this would be a short-term drought and that things would return to normal at some point," Turton says. "But climate change is a factor now, and it's only begun to dawn on them how much the demand for water will just keep increasing."
For the moment, the region is scrambling to bring new supplies on line. Four new desalination plants are under construction. New water wells are being drilled and a plant that would reuse effluent is being built. Most of those projects are more than half completed.
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Aug 23, 2023 · Johannesburg is plagued with issues because of the lack of maintenance in its infrastructure. Truluck said the pipelines had reached the end of their lifespan, as had many roads, and the deteriorating streets were encouraging pipe bursts.
- Alex Patrick
Apr 22, 2023 · Some neighbourhoods in Johannesburg have lost water supplies, partly because pumping stations are without power. Bulbs illuminate a food stall in the Imizamo Yethu informal settlement in the Hout...
Graph of total water stored in the Western Cape's largest six dams (blue) as well as City of Cape Town water restriction level (orange) from November 2013 to August 2021. The Cape Town water crisis in South Africa was a multi-year period in 2015–2020 of water shortage in the Western Cape region, most notably affecting the City of Cape Town.
In 2018, Cape Town’s ‘Day Zero’ became the focus for South Africa’s water crisis, but while its circumstances were certainly unique, the causes of its water problems were not—high demand...
