Tuesday 30 January 2018 15:13. comments. The water levels of Cape Town's major supply dams, which are sourced by rainfall, have plunged because of the prolonged drought. The City would not provide us with historical consumption data. In Cape Town, water managers thought they could avoid building new infrastructure to supply a growing population by encouraging everyone to use less water. And it is the hydrological drought that affects the Cape’s dams. The 2015-2017 Cape Town Drought: Attribution and Prediction Using Machine Learning. Tariff increases, restrictions and campaigns brought big reductions in water us… In the 2016–2018 drought, Cape Town almost ran out of municipal water. Transparent information about the severity of the crisis and shifting the responsibility for crisis avoidance to residents amplified water savings at the height of the drought. Four years ago, Cape Town was on the verge of running out of water. Cape Town’s drought was extreme, with “zero day” water storage months away, causing severe water rationing to Cape Town’s ~3.8 million population. The city of Cape Town, South Africa, is bone dry. Possible drought causes are numerous and, aside from the decreasing wet season precipitation, the effects are exacerbated by the increasing population with associated water demand, greater agricultural acreage and land surface changes. Melissa Twigg. March 29, 2018 After a three-year drought, the worst in over a century, Cape Town’s water supply is running dry and might reach the much-feared “Day Zero” in 2019 (officials had originally estimated July 2018). We use cookies to help provide and enhance our service and tailor content and ads. How smart meters helped Cape Town beat drought 01:14 (CNN) Cape Town's reservoirs have topped 100% for the first time in six years , a magnificent change in … What is happening to us in Cape Town might not be an outlier. Drought is a relatively complex concept, particularly hydrological drought. Read time 7 min. show us, in answer to the question asked in the title of this article: No, Cape Town (or at least the catchment area of its largest and most significant water resource) is not suffering from the worst drought since 1904. Cape town generated nearly 10 percent of the country’s total gross domestic product in 2016. Cape Town was declared a disaster area after the worst drought in almost a century, following its driest three consecutive wet seasons (April 1-October 31), in 2015 -2017. A major drought … The graph below shows the decreased rainfall in the past two years for Theewaterskloof, the dam supplying more than half our water. In 2017, after two straight years of drought, a third drought year offered more of the same.. By continuing you agree to the use of cookies. A hydrological drought is a result of an intricate interplay of characteristics of weather such as timing, magnitude and intensity of rainfall events, and other factors affecting runoff and dam storage. Cape Town is in the middle of a drought. The causes of Cape Town’s water crisis are hotly contested. This site was created to make that obvious to everyone. Cape Town drought: How locals and tourists are being affected. © 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Possible climate drivers associated with available Cape Town precipitation and temperature include: The Southern Annular Mode, Atlantic Meridional Mode, Indian Ocean Dipole, an Integrated Southern Hemisphere temperature index and several El Niño indices. We use cookies to help provide and enhance our service and tailor content and ads. ScienceDirect ® is a registered trademark of Elsevier B.V. ScienceDirect ® is a registered trademark of Elsevier B.V. As rainfall decreases, water management becomes critical, requiring predictions for future rainfall. Capetonians queue up at local springs during the height of water restrictions in the city, when everything was being done to avoid the prospect of Day Zero when the taps would ultimately run dry. During the drought the Western Cape government told locals to “get creative” with how they saved water. ScienceDirect ® is a registered trademark of Elsevier B.V. ScienceDirect ® is a registered trademark of Elsevier B.V. The Cape Town drought: A study of the combined effectiveness of measures implemented to prevent “Day Zero”. Cape Town’s drought was extreme, with “zero day” water storage months away, causing severe water rationing to Cape Town’s ~3.8 million population. Much like Cape Town's fiasco, reservoirs in Sao Paulo, Brazil, dropped so … Copyright © 2021 Elsevier B.V. or its licensors or contributors. The City of Cape Town's Xanthea said that the long-term effects of the water crisis were acutely felt on farms, but she said that the upside of the drought was the lessons it had taught them. Through the use of a higher-resolution climate model, our analysis further constrains previous work showing that anthropogenic climate change made this event five to six times more likely relative to the early 20th century. Share this article: Share Tweet Share Share Share Email Share Cape Town - As national water week begins the City has reported a rise in Cape Town … Thankfully, in 2018 the region had a relatively bountiful rainy season, and the city was able to escape it's "Day Zero" plans for turning off the city's … © 2018 The Author(s). How Cape Town's Residents Are Surviving the Water Crisis—For Now. January 2020 saw the Northern Cape finally declared a disaster area, with R300-million set aside by the government for emergency drought relief. Published by Elsevier B.V. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2018.10.323. Machine learning techniques are applied to these drivers for the first time and provide encouraging predictive skill levels. Cape Town’s drought under the microscope 29 January 2019 | Story Niémah Davids. Cape Town residents are actively bracing themselves for “Day Zero” or the day when they’ll be without water due to a three-year-long drought.. [26] Residential water usage declined significantly under the Level 6B restrictions, with the lowest recorded figure being 481 million litres per day on 2 July 2018, the closest to the targeted level of 450 million litres per day. Day Zero was a severe water crisis during the 2017-2018 period, where close to 4 million Cape Town residents were almost left without any water following a three-year long (2015-2017) severe drought. In the 2016–2018 drought, Cape Town almost ran out of municipal water. (CNN) — Cape Town's reputation as a glossy travel magazine cover star has taken a hit this year, as water restrictions to combat the drought become increasingly severe. The City of Cape Town successfully reduced water use by more than 50 percent during the drought from 2015 to 2018. Tariff increases, restrictions and campaigns brought big reductions in water use during the dry spring and summer months: 14.3% in September 2017, when non-compliant households were threatened with a water usage restriction meter; 17.2% in October, when a disaster plan threatened residents with collecting water daily at 200 points across the City; and 20.1–24.3%, when “Day Zero” appeared unavoidable, water pressure was reduced, usage was restricted to 50 L per person per day and exponential tariff hikes were introduced. This day is expected sometime around Apr. One year on, Cape Town has apparently made it through the worst of a historic drought without turning off the taps, although the water supply is still tenuous. The crisis extended into surrounding farmlands, as agriculture is vital for the region’s economy. The Western Cape is experiencing the worst drought in more than a century South Africa's Western Cape province has declared a drought disaster as it … Cape Town was declared a disaster area after the worst drought in almost a century, following its driest three consecutive wet seasons (April 1-October 31), in 2015 -2017. Theewaterskloof, the biggest reservoir for Cape Town, is a diminished trickle after three years of relentless drought that have reduced it to barely a tenth of its 480bn-litre capacity. The livelihood of Cape Town is deeply rooted in the tourism industry but since they are being greatly affected by the worst year of drought, hotels have far less occupants and tourists have a general sense of hesitance to come to the Mother City. Copyright © 2021 Elsevier B.V. or its licensors or contributors. in Cape Town. Graph constructed using data from National Department of Water and Sanitation. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wre.2021.100177. Results suggest that machine learning holds promise for adapting to drought by managing water resources in Cape Town and, more generally for global locations depending solely on rainfall under a warming climate. The drought also threatens to slow South Africa’s economic rebound which has been fueled by a surge in agricultural production. Cape Town is currently in the grips of the most devastating drought in 100 years.With the rainy season all but over, and dam water supplies still sitting at dangerously low levels, the city is coming precariously close to running out of water altogether. The current water shortage experienced is due to … Several variable selection techniques suggest signals in both the Atlantic and Indian Oceans contribute to Cape Town droughts. There is a drought, of course. Article bookmarked. Facing the city’s worst drought on record, it was able to back away from the … By continuing you agree to the use of cookies. The Cape Town “Day Zero” drought was caused by an exceptional 3-y rainfall deficit. In 2018, the City of Cape Town experienced its worst drought in over a century. As the drought in Cape Town intensified in 2017/2018 and then abated later in 2018, international and national attention was focussed on Cape Town. Cape Town hotels removed bath plugs and encouraged guests to take quick showers. It could happen to you too.