Water usage spikes by 5% to 542 million litres per day

As at today, Monday 16 April 2018, our collective consumption over the past week was 542 million litres of water per day. This is up from an average of 516 million litres last week. Dam levels have declined a further 0,5% to 20,9% . Read more below:

The fall in dam levels can be attributed to environmental influences such as higher temperature and evaporation, as well as an increase in usage by customers. Thus far April has been relatively warm, mimicking the climate patterns of March. High temperatures were experienced last week, as well as high winds in the catchment areas.

Although the majority of our water users are doing their best to lower usage to 50 litres per day, there may be some whose usage still fluctuate according to the weather.

We need to reduce our total consumption to 450 million litres per day to keep within the allocation provided to the City by the National Department of Water and Sanitation. This requires individuals to use no more than 50 litres per person per day. We must achieve this target to stretch the available water supplies as far as possible into the winter months and through the remainder of the year.

We have made great progress so far, but we are not yet out of the woods. We must continue to keep our usage as low as possible.

Although the winter months will likely bring more rain, we cannot estimate how much rain we will have, or count on it having a significant impact on our dam levels. The City will therefore continue its drought interventions, including pressure management, accelerated leak repair, Level 6b restrictions and tariffs to deter high water usage, as long as needed to see us through the drought.

We encourage all of our water users who are living the #50LitreLife to show their commitment to saving our precious water by getting a free profile picture at http://bit.ly/2IzvM2t

Please visit www.capetown.gov.za/thinkwater for all water-related information.

Statement issued by Alderman Ian Neilson, Executive Deputy Mayor, City of Cape Town, 16 April 2018