Cape Town, South Africa faced severe water shortage in 2018. While dam water levels have been declining since 2015, the Cape Town water crisis peaked during mid-2017 to mid-2018 where water levels hovered between 15 to 30 per cent of total dam capacity.
In late-2017, there were first mentions of plans for “Day Zero”, a shorthand reference for the day when the water level of the major dams supplying the City fell below 13.5 per cent.
“Day Zero” would herald the start of Level 7 water restrictions, where municipal water supplies would largely be switched off and residents would have to queue for their daily ration of water, making the City of Cape Town the first major city in the world to potentially run out of water.

The City of Cape Town implemented significant water restrictions in a bid to curb water usage, and succeeded in reducing its daily water usage by more than half to around 500 million liters (130,000,000 US gal) per day in March 2018
The fall in water usage, combined with strong rains in June 2018, led dam levels to steadily increase, and for the City to continually postpone its estimate for “Day Zero”.

свернуть