Cape Town Dam Levels Up… BUT So Is Water Usage

While there has been a slight increase in dam levels thanks to recent rainfalls in the Western Cape, South Africa, the City of Cape Town has cautioned that water usage has also increased.

“Although there has been a slight increase in dam levels of 0.5% to an overall level of 21.4% as a result of some rainfall and lower evaporation rates, we need to continue to stretch the remaining water in our dams as we simply do not know how much rain we will receive over the winter months,” the City said on Monday.

Cape Town’s collective consumption over the past week was 554 million litres of water per day.

This is a 6.7% increase from consumption of 519 million litres last week. It places Cape Town 104 million litres above the usage target of 450 million litres per day that the National Department of Water and Sanitation has set as a requirement.

“We do know that the majority of our water users are doing their best to lower usage to 50 litres per day to get to the requirement of 450 million litres, but there may be a bit of complacency creeping in,” the City said, calling on all Capetonians to remain on course with their savings efforts.

From its side, the city confirmed that it is continuing with its work to help keep Day Zero away.

In addition, to internal water-saving efforts and an advanced pressure management programme, which is saving approximately 52 million litres of water per day, the water resilience programme will bring more of the city’s augmentation projects online over the coming months.

However, the City does not know how much rainfall it is likely to receive over the winter season.

As such, the City has encouraged all water users who are living the #50LitreLife to show their commitment to saving water.

Source: SAnews.gov.za