Cape town is located on the southwestern coast of South Africa.
It is the largest city in South Africa, with a growing resident population of
3.7million. The climate of Cape Town is warm and dry, during the summer with
mild rainy winters. The average temperature has increased by 0.14 degrees Celsius
over the past 30 years and rainfall is expected to decrease by 9 by 2100 (Otto et al, 2018).
Cape Town is well-known for its tourist industry and horticulture. 30% of the
country’s gross regional product comes from the international trade of agricultural
products (Wikipedia, 2019).
During 2015 and 2017, the western cape region suffered from
a lack of rainfall. This led to the occurrence of ‘the worst drought since 1904’
and water shortages (Otto et al, 2018). Cape Town is home to six major reservoirs
which are recharged by rainwater mostly and some groundwater sources (Parks et al, 2019).
Due to the unexpected change in rainfall patterns and distributions, the
reservoirs suffered from a lack of water over the 3 years. The continued excessive
consumption and lack of investment in water supply infrastructure further
exacerbated the problem of water shortage and put stress on the government as ‘Day
Zero’ was approaching.
What is ‘Day Zero’?
Day Zero was introduced by the City of Cape Town to create
more awareness amongst the inhabitants to manage their water resource. Government
officials said that once freshwater supplies drop below 13.5%, most of the municipal
water network will be shutdown (Parks et al, 2019). This means that the taps of Cape
Town will essentially ‘run dry’. Residents will be allowed to collect water
from communal standpipes; however, this is limited to 25 litres per person, per
day (Imperial).
Fortunately, ‘Day Zero’ was delayed, preventing long queues
at public water collection points. This was as a result of the public understanding
and reducing their consumption of fresh water. Although this outcome was
positive overall, agricultural usage of water declined, resulting in an
economic loss of approximately R5.9 billion. This led to exports dropping by
13-20% (WWF, 2018; Wolski, 2018).
To solve this issue with unpredictable rainfall and
climate change, Cape Town needs to place new strategies to manage its water
resources. This could be done in several ways. Firstly, increasing water
storage capacities will maximise the amount of water stored during wet periods,
thus allowing the government to ‘tap into’ these stores during emergencies.
Moreover, educating the population about managing water resources and
setting limits on how much water can be consumed will reduce the overall usage.
Finally, stormwater harvesting has proven to be a potentially successful method
to use for non-potable purposes. Although the water must undergo treatment and
the quality of the water can be questioned, it will increase the availability of
freshwater supplies for domestic use, such as drinking (Rodina, 2017).