Urgent action needed to curb Cape Town’s high water consumption, urges expert

Earlier this month, Cape Town’s average water usage exceeded one billion litres a day for the first time since 2014. The City of Cape Town’s current water usage target is 850-million litres a day. Last week, usage averaged 950-million litres a day.

Dr Kevin Winter, from the University of Cape Town’s Water Futures Institute, says the high demand is concerning and water restrictions should be introduced. He says the best way to reduce water consumption is to raise tariffs.

“Water is too cheap,” says Winter.

Cape Town currently has no water restrictions and only a very small number of households that consume a lot of water pay a higher tariff.

“It is odd that we get these lags and lack of inertia in raising the levels. We need to react much faster. Cities need to lead in these circumstances; it’s a dynamic decision,“ Winter says.

Cape Town’s dam levels are at 56.8%. This time last year, the dams were more than 80% full. Dam levels in Cape Town are projected to fall below 50% next month. Dam levels for the Western Cape were at 49.4% this week.

Winter says that dams under 50% take longer to fill up and less water is released into rivers, putting pressure on sensitive ecological systems and the water used for agricultural purposes.

The current water consumption is too high for a growing city with increasingly unreliable rainfall, he says.

The South African Weather Service has forecast slightly above-average rainfall from March to May, but Winter says there is a chance this modelling is wrong.

Growing city