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Day Zero in Cape Town


Cape Town 

My second blog post about environmental change and environmental justice in South-Africa will be about Cape Town. Looking at figure 1, there has been a clear difference in rainfall between Johannesburg and Cape Town over the last years. Although Cape Town, just like Johannesburg, does deal with floods. This blog post will be about the lack of water in Cape Town.

Cape Town, the second-largest city in South-Africa is located in the Mediterranean climate zone (Muller, 2018). In winter months (June-August) the city experiences a mild to moderately wet winter with temperatures from 8 to 18 degrees. In the summer months (December-March) it deals with warm dry summer with temperature ranges from 16 to 26 degrees. Cold front norther westerly winds bring in most of the annual precipitation which is annual approximately 515 mm a year (Abiodun et al., 2017). Cape Town has been dealing with droughts for decades. The last severe drought period was last year. Climate models predict more water shortages for Cape Town due to a predicted decrease in  frontal rainfall and related extreme events (Engelbrecht et al., 2008). According to Otto et al. (2018), climate change tripled the likelihood of a big drought to happen.

Day Zero

After a couple of wet years, most of the 6 reservoirs that supply water to the city were full in winter 2014. After the wet winter in 2014, the drought began to settle in Cape Town. When the reservoir levels dropped to 38% before what was going to be a hot summer in 2017, the city started to panic about “day zero”, a day without water supply. Policies for water use where implemented, meaning that one could use only 50 liters water per day. Although for a lot of poorer people in town this did not change a thing, richer people, mostly living in suburbanites, had to give up gardens and make changes in their daily use of water patterns. Climate change, together with urbanization, adds up to the already existing drought problems in Cape Town.  However, on top of this, just like in the case of Johannesburg, poor management also plays a big role in facing these challenges with water (Muller, 2018).

Models using lap links between river basins, reservoirs and transmission channels together with historical data and projections of water demand have been used for decades to guide water management in South-Africa. This was used for the planning of water networks and development systems in the country. The WCWSS (Western Cape Water Supply System) was guided by these models in for example where to build reservoirs or the building of the Berg River Dam. These models already predicted water problems in 2015 but the officials dismissed these signals and neglected to invest in long-term water projects. Another problem with the water system in Cape Town is that the whole system is very small. With less than 800 square kilometers it is a very local climate on which the city is dependent. For more certainty, a wider system with more local variations would help (Muller, 2018).






Injustice

Droughts and other extreme weather events have different impacts on people based on structural reasons such as class and segregation (Ziervogel & Enqvist, 2019).  Cape town deals with environmental injustice in the inequality of water access. Besides injustice in general water access, droughts also have a disproportionately negative impact on poorer households.  (Mahlanza et al., 2016). To deal with the water problems the government implemented WMDs (Water management devices) as part of a strategy in management and conservation of water.  These devices are connected to household meters, restricting households to use more water than 350 l of water a day, regardless of the household size. More water can be obtained, if the household proofs that they can afford it. This is were another injustice comes in. People in the system complain about not getting enough water for every day uses. Poorer households cannot afford to pay extra and therefore have water stress and have to find other sources of water. Furthermore, these devices are disproportionally often applied in poor households. This targeting is in itself already an injustice and leaves no option for not accepting the device. In case a household fails in paying the water bill, cutoffs will be applied, depriving households of access to water. In this targeting, poor households do not really have an option to not accept the decide (Mahlanza et al, 2016). Adaptation strategies (for climate change), such as the WMD  should always consider justice in the implementation. This entails justice in recognition, participation, and distribution. 






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