EMERGENCY SUPPLY SCHEMES
Cape Town moves to counter shortage of city’s usable water
The City of Cape Town is considering building various small-scale emergency water supply schemes in the short term amid fears the metro will run out of usable water in about 100 days. The city, which has received below-average rainfall in the last five years, remains a water-scarce area despite being almost completely surrounded by sea. City officials have said water rationing could soon be introduced to conserve available water should dams drop to dangerous levels before the onset of the rainy winter season, which usually begins in May. As of Monday, dam levels had dropped to 28.6%. With the last 10% of a dam’s water mostly not being useable, dam levels are effectively at about 18.6 % of usable water with about 103 days of usable water left at current consumption levels. Consumption last week reached 750-million litres per day of the collective usage target of 700-million litres.
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