Why Cape Town Is Running Out of Water, and Who’s Next

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/02/cape-town-running-out-of-water-drought-taps-shutoff-other-cities/

By Craig Welch
PUBLISHED February 2, 2018

By late spring, 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, now projected for mid-April, 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.

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For years, a shutdown of this magnitude in such a cosmopolitan city had been almost inconceivable. But as overdevelopment, population growth, and climate change upset the balance between water use and supply, urban centers from North America to South America and from Australia to Asia increasingly face threats of severe drinking-water shortages.

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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.

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Says David Olivier, a research fellow at the Global Change Institute at South Africa's University of the Witwatersrand, "The fundamental problem is the kind of lifestyle we're living. There's almost a sense of entitlement that we have a right to consume as much as we want. The attitude and reaction of most posts on social media is indignation. It's 'we pay our taxes' and therefore we should be as comfortable as possible.”

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Over the last 20 years, the city recognized some of the increased threat. It made strides in reducing water use from its six major reservoirs, which hold up to 230 billion gallons of water. Per capita consumption declined, the city reduced leaks, it forced large users to pay more, and generally promoted water efficiency, says Winter. Cape Town won several international water management awards. It even tries to shame top water users by publishing their names.

But officials also made an increasingly common mistake: They assumed future rainfall patterns would resemble the past, or at least not change too quickly.

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A decade ago, the city was told that population growth and shifts projected to come with climate change—drier, hotter weather, with less winter rainfall, and reduced stream flows—would require it find additional water sources.

"They were warned, but those warnings were not enough to shift attention from schools or hospitals or all the other things on the agenda," Winter says.

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While it's not clear how much of the current dry spell is driven by natural variability as opposed to climate change, "it's clear our current system is no longer reliable enough," Olivier says. "We may not have another drought like this for a few decades. But extreme events are only going to become more common."

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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.

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.

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Meanwhile, climate change is causing wider swings in weather, with more intense storms and more extreme events. "Think of southern California's record snowpack after five years of drought followed by more drought—such swings are likely to be the new normal," she says.

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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.

All but one, however, is behind schedule, as city leaders push to at least get something up and running soon.

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