Water crisis in Cape Town: a failure in governance
Authors: None The Lancet Planetary Health
Journal: The Lancet Planetary Health (2018)

In 2015, Cape Town was awarded a prize by the C40—a collection of cities focused on climate change worldwide—for its management of water. 3 years later, the city has run dramatically low on water. In the coming months, Cape Town, if the water levels keep falling, will declare day zero—when the city will run out of water and supplies to the suburbs will be shut off. This scenario had not been envisaged as a possibility for Cape Town. The city has long been known for its strong focus on the environment and respect for natural resources. Its emphasis on sustainability has been valued to the point that is has been described as one of the world's greenest cities. Why then did it go wrong, and what type of measures can be taken now to avoid day zero? The causes of the crisis that has crippled Cape Town find their roots in repeated failures from the government to prepare for this eventuality. One of the biggest debates is whether local government is handling the crisis effectively. The core problem here is in fact political. In South Africa, the ruling African National Congress (ANC) and the Democratic Alliance, the opposition party that runs the city, have both had some responsibility for maintaining and administering water and have missed crucial steps in water management. During the first 2 years of a drought that has hit South Africa for the past 3 years, the national government, which controls the water supply to Cape Town, did not limit water use to farmers and underestimated the size of the problem, thinking that the drought would only be temporary. The steep population rise, agriculture expansion, and drought have not made the situation any better. Cape Town went from 2·4 million inhabitants in 1995 to 4·3 million today—this growth has exceeded the six dams that store and supply water to the city. Berg river dam has been the only significant addition to the water storage infrastructure since 1995. The six dams that supply water to Cape Town rely on rainfall, a situation prone to failure given the aridity of the region and the warmer climate of the past few years. For many years Cape Town has been warned to diversify the sources from which it gets its water. 3 years of drought, exacerbated by climate change, have badly hit the already vulnerable water supply system. Capetonians are now restricted to use of just 50 L of water per person per day. That's the absolute minimum to survive, as specified in a paper published in 1996 by Peter Gleick, and to halt the spread of infectious diseases. The rapid expansion of agriculture and in particular wine production (which attracts 1·5 million visitors every year) is another reason of concern. Although irrigation has declined substantially in the past 5 years, a third of water is still used for this purpose. Solutions are not easy to find, but a few could be taken under consideration in the future to avoid this situation happening again. For example, small community programmes could be provided to encourage people to reduce domestic water use (eg, by taking shorter showers); refunds could be given for using more water-efficient washing machines and dishwashers; educational materials could be distributed to schools and colleges; advertisements could be put on television and in newspapers on how to use water sustainably; and, finally, people could be fined for using water for car washing or daytime lawn watering. What Cape Town needs now is rain. If the drought in Cape Town persists into South Africa's winter months (May–August), the city could see the spread of many respiratory infections as well as others transmitted via skin-to-skin contact. Substantial and costly long term solutions will be needed such as large-scale desalination (and even then doubts remain about scalability) and wastewater recycling facilities. What it is certain though now is that the response of the government that will take over after Zuma's resignation must fulfil the fundamental rights of millions of residents in Cape Town and allocate water on the basis of vital needs. This is an ambitious plan for one of the world's most unequal societies, where access to goods is prioritised on the basis of wealthy status. South African political leaders from both parties need to leave their mistakes behind and stop blaming each other. It is time for them to get together and create a solution that will change Cape Town's precarious relationship with a critical resource, even after the rains come and the current crisis subsides.