Cape Town - As the risk of water restrictions increased from low to medium, the City has warned that water usage was climbing to pre-drought levels, despite its appeal to residents at the beginning of summer to keep their collective usage to less than 850 million litres a day.
Water and Sanitation Mayco member Siseko Mbandezi said: “While the City is not in a Day Zero scenario, water restrictions would need to be considered if Cape Town experiences a similar rainfall pattern to what was experienced in 2022 (one of the 10 lowest rainfall years in the last 100).”
The call to reduce water usage was a proactive measure taken to mitigate the risk of another below-average winter rainfall and reduced dam levels, and to assist reliability of water supply which was affected by ongoing load shedding.
Cape Town experienced below-average rainfall during the 2022 hydrological year, and dam levels were now 62%, almost 25% lower than they were at this time last year.
The initial usage target was set in November at 950 million litres of water per day to conserve dam water before the next rainfall season.
However, Mbandezi said that high stages of load shedding created operational challenges that resulted in the City being unable to produce enough water to ensure its reservoirs remain full during high water use, which led to a revised target of 850 million litres per day.
Coupled with continuing high stages of load shedding and another below-average rainfall, the City will be in a vulnerable position if it does not reach the proactive water target and has appealed to residents to help them by reducing usage.
Stefaan Conradie of the UCT Climate System Analysis Group said water consumption was not quite at pre-drought levels yet, especially when accounting for population growth, but the increase in consumption was concerning, given the relatively low dam levels at present.
If the autumn and summer rainfall pattern this year was similar to the last few years, he expected dam levels to drop to a minimum of around 35-40%, at current consumption levels.
kristin.engel@inl.co.za