Lessons from the Cape Town water crisis

Posted by Jessica Fell

Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Civil Engineering - University of Cape Town

and Kirsty Carden 

Associate Professor and Interim Director of the Future Water Research Institute - University of Cape Town

Posted on Wednesday, March 30, 2022

Cape Town, South Africa faced a crippling drought between 2016 and 2018. The widely reported “Day Zero” crisis, wherein the city faced the real possibility of the taps being turned off, presented an acute shock and highlighted major vulnerabilities in the city’s water supply system, which relies largely on six large dams. Due to a combination of demand incentives, intensive supply management, and behavioral change campaigns, Cape Town was able to avert “Day Zero.” However, the crisis provided a number of useful lessons and exposed the critical need for a water system rooted in principles of resilience and a renewed technical approach to water management aimed at equity, sustainability, and water sensitivity.

Having recently acknowledged World Water Day 2022, it is an opportune time to reflect on how the crisis in Cape Town was yet another expression of the growing water turbulence characterizing our world today. Water scarcity is becoming an increasing threat because of climate change impacts (including changing rainfall patterns and rising temperatures) and increasing water demand. Symptoms such as dysfunctional sanitation in urban slums, deteriorating water quality in river catchments and aquifers, and extensive biodiversity loss are critical warning signals that conventional urban water management is ill-suited to address water security concerns.

In urban areas, human-centered processes govern the water cycle; urban water users do not consume water but rather pollute it. Water security is thus more than a quantity issue; it considers quality, productivity, attitudes and behaviors, and governance. Effectively managing water scarcity requires multidisciplinary perspectives in complex decisionmaking structures—engineering, planning, hydrology, environmental and climate science, social science, policy expertise, and more.

A multidisciplinary academic team from three higher education institutions in the Western Cape province of South Africa came together following the Cape Town drought to explore different responses to water scarcity across the world—in a collaboration named “Cities facing escalating water shortages.” Six task teams were established to consider political, economic, technical science, natural science, social science, and civil society aspects through several workshops with 50 diverse stakeholders. The collaboration produced an edited collection of position documents that address these multiple perspectives on urban water security in a publication titled “Towards the blue-green city: Building urban water resilience.”

You can download a copy «« HERE »»

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/africa-in-focus/2022/03/30/lessons-from-the-cape-town-water-crisis-and-the-need-for-a-renewed-technical-agenda/