Last year, Cape Town had to face one of the worst crisis ever seen. South Africa is one of the world’s driest countries and due to its urbanisation, water demand constantly increase. According to the WWF, demand should get to 17.7 billion m³ by 2030. The situation got so bad that some businesses were encouraging people not to flush toilet after using it. The city was just 90 days away from turning off the taps. A year later, the South African city’s basins are close to be over 80% full and therefore water restrictions have been loosened.
However, this crisis brought a new mental approach to one of the 3 South African's Capital (as matter of fact, South Africa has 3 capitals: Pretoria (executive); Bloemfontein (judicial); Cape Town (legislative). After being threatened by this water crises, citizens became water-wise.
Desperate times call for desperate measures
A dry climate, highly urbanised and an excessive water consumption per capita, Cape Town had all the ingredients to make this water crisis happen. In 2018, after three years of scarce rainfall, the city declared that some extreme actions were required in order to avoid running out of water.
The most important action to be taken, was surely the decrease water demand. The Municipality started getting citizens and businesses involved in water-saving initiatives. Communication and information on how reduced water waste was crucial. Residents were instructed to shower for no more than 3 minutes. Awareness campaigns were launched such as “If it’s yellow, let it mellow”(that's a pretty cool slogan I have to admit), which was aiming to reduce flushing the toilet as little as possible. And the use of grey water (which is all wastewater generated in apartments or office buildings from streams without fecal contamination) was also promoted.
Another action taken by the Municipality was setting up a restriction of 50 L per day per person to Cape Town's residents (an average shower takes up to 15L per minute, so they really had to be quick). Backed up with data on each household’s water use, people united together, sharing advices via social media.
Given the critical situation, the City steadily increased water limitations, involving even swimming pools and fountains. Those who weren't following these guideline faced huge fines. The Municipality also raised tariffs consistently as well as deploying management devices, which set a daily limit on water supply. This resulted in both reducing overall consumption and decreasing waste due to leaks. Agricultural and commercial sectors had to share their toll as Cape Town introduced water quotas for these sectors.
Happy ending, for now
By changing its citizens habits, and with a little help from the returning of some rain, Cape Town managed to win against one of the worst water crisis. However, the risk of future shortages still persists (Nation Geographic research). Nevertheless, if people keep on making efforts, act responsibly and reduce water waste I am sure a crisis bad as this one won't happen again.
Water should be accessible and free for everyone. However, in order to achieve this we all have to be committed. Some Regions in the World are drier and with less water resources. The only way of allowing them to get drinkable water is for us to act as the Cape Town's citizens, uniting together and reduce our waste: how many useless flush we do per day? How long does it take for us to take a shower? How long do you keep your tap open while brushing your teeth? There are some many small actions we can do daily in order to save water and make it accessible to those who are not as lucky as us.
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Image credit: pixabay
Chart credit: WWF
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