The South African Water Crisis:
Despite being surrounded by water; Cape Town South Africa may be the first city to run out of clean drinking water.
The day upon which the city will run out of water is referred to as “Day Zero” which originally predicted to take place on May 8th. With severe impact from the lack of rainfall for over a 3 year period and other factors such as a lack of government planning to produce alternative sources of water, Day Zero in Cape Town has been brought forward to April 12 due to a severe drop in dam levels, City of Cape Town Deputy Mayor Ian Neilson said on Tuesday, 23 January 2018.
There have been efforts to fight back Day Zero by implementing water restrictions by urging the public to lower their daily consumption to avoid the taps literally running dry. But efforts by the citizens of the Mother City were too little too late. From February 1, there will be Level 6B restrictions in the City of Cape Town, reducing maximum daily consumption per person to 50 litres a day, from 87 litres.
Ahead of Day Zero, the South African government has set up fully functioning water collection points which will be the public’s main source of water when the inevitable happens. In such a dire situation, there will surely be an outbreak of anger and frustration. The South African Police Service has devised a plan for police officers, the military and traffic officers to help monitor water distribution points across the metro.
Major dam levels are sitting at around 27% with only 18% eligible for human use. The government has now set out to create 8 desalination plants around the city to provide the city’s water system with an extra 108 million litres of water per day. But without the effort of the citizens who need to continue saving water and cutting down their consumption, Cape Town will inevitably run out of a usable water supply.
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