The Cape Town drought was a global event in urban water management. It brought the city to the brink of a severe water shortage, as a major metropolitan area faced the prospect of its taps running dry. The crisis underscored the complex challenges of balancing water supply and demand in a rapidly urbanizing environment.
Understanding the Crisis
The Cape Town water crisis was a severe, multi-year shortage affecting the Western Cape region, including the city, from 2015 to 2020. Dam levels declined from 2015, worsening over three consecutive years of low winter rainfall. The situation reached its peak severity between mid-2017 and mid-2018, when dam levels supplying the city hovered between 14% and 29% of their total capacity.
In January 2018, the local government announced plans for “Day Zero,” when major dam water levels would fall below 13.5%. At this threshold, municipal water supplies would largely shut off, forcing residents to queue at 149 designated water collection points for a daily ration of about 25 liters per person. This scenario drew global attention as Cape Town faced the possibility of becoming the first major city to run out of municipal water. Through interventions and some rainfall, the city avoided Day Zero, with indefinite postponement announced in June 2018.
Contributing Factors
The drought’s immediate cause was an extreme rainfall deficit from 2015 to 2017, a rare and severe event. This period saw three consecutive years of dry winters, with 2017 recording the lowest annual rainfall since 1933 in the Western Cape. Research indicates that human-caused climate change made this drought five to six times more likely to occur.
Beyond meteorological conditions, rapid population growth strained Cape Town’s water resources. The city’s population expanded by 67% (2.4 million in 1996 to 4 million by 2017), while dam water storage capacity increased by only 17%. This disparity between increasing demand and limited supply contributed to the water system’s vulnerability. Past water management, relying primarily on surface water from rain-fed dams, also left the city susceptible to climatic variability.
Effects on the City and its Residents
The drought had social consequences, requiring residents to make daily life adjustments. Citizens adopted extreme water-saving behaviors, such as limiting showers, reusing greywater for flushing toilets, and collecting water from natural springs when municipal limits were too restrictive. Public health concerns arose from reduced hygiene and potential disease spread at crowded water collection points, though largely mitigated by the city’s avoidance of Day Zero. The crisis also highlighted existing social inequalities, placing a disproportionate financial burden on low-income communities who often had less access to water-saving technologies or alternative water sources.
Economically, the drought impacted various sectors. Agricultural production in the Western Cape suffered substantial losses, estimated at around $400 million, leading to tens of thousands of job losses. The tourism industry, a significant contributor to Cape Town’s economy, also faced challenges as visitors were urged to “save like a local” and water availability concerns deterred travel. Environmental effects included severely depleted dam levels, dropping to 13.5% of capacity, stressing local ecosystems dependent on these water bodies.
Building Water Resilience
In response to the drought, Cape Town implemented a multi-faceted approach to enhance future water security. Immediate measures included stringent water restrictions, reducing daily water usage by over half, from 1.1 billion liters per day in early 2015 to 500 million liters per day by March 2018. Public communication campaigns encouraged behavioral changes, such as shorter showers and reduced outdoor water use. This collective reduction in consumption was a major factor in pushing back Day Zero.
For long-term water resilience, the city developed its New Water Programme, aiming to diversify water sources and reduce reliance on rainfall-fed dams, which historically supplied 98% of its water. Strategies include investments in alternative sources such as desalination, groundwater abstraction, and water reuse. For example, the Faure New Water Scheme, a large-scale water reuse project, plans to purify treated wastewater to drinking quality using advanced multi-barrier processes. The city aims to add 300 million liters of water per day from these new sources by 2030, with a goal for 25% of its water to come from diverse sources by 2040. These initiatives, alongside infrastructure improvements like pressure management in water networks to reduce leakages, represent lessons learned in urban water management and community cooperation.