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Cape Town could be the first city to run out of water

bbc.com

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Re: Cape Town could be the first city to run out of water

#21

Post by pure-awesome »

overlordalex wrote: post #3

I live in Cape Town, and this article is missing some points about whats been going on: 1. "Day 0" has been moved forward - we're now expected to run out of water 21 April. 2. The daily limit of water per person is 87l but only ~50% of consumers meet this target 3. This is considered a 1/1000 year event (in contrast to 1/100 experienced elsewhere in the country recently). However due to increased population this is b…

Capetonian here as well. I'm honestly more than a little bit worried about the situation.

Re: Cape Town could be the first city to run out of water

#22

Post by charlesdm »

overlordalex wrote: post #3

I live in Cape Town, and this article is missing some points about whats been going on: 1. "Day 0" has been moved forward - we're now expected to run out of water 21 April. 2. The daily limit of water per person is 87l but only ~50% of consumers meet this target 3. This is considered a 1/1000 year event (in contrast to 1/100 experienced elsewhere in the country recently). However due to increased population this is b…

Well, that's interesting. Are there companies that own water capacity in countries? Might be a good long term investment.

Re: Cape Town could be the first city to run out of water

#23

Post by snowwolf »

This has also led to an interesting social experiment based on a theory developed by the University of California (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272494414...) where household water consumption has been made public (https://citymaps.capetown.gov.za/waterviewer/) in order to apply social pressure on high users.

Re: Cape Town could be the first city to run out of water

#24

Post by chesimov »

overlordalex wrote: post #3

I live in Cape Town, and this article is missing some points about whats been going on: 1. "Day 0" has been moved forward - we're now expected to run out of water 21 April. 2. The daily limit of water per person is 87l but only ~50% of consumers meet this target 3. This is considered a 1/1000 year event (in contrast to 1/100 experienced elsewhere in the country recently). However due to increased population this is b…

On point 4 - my understanding is that the poorest areas (which are at most risk of disease outbreaks) will not have their water cut. Rather, everyone else will have their water cut first while some water still remains in the dams, which is specifically allocated for those areas and will last long enough until the mid-year rain. I last read this a while ago though, so things may have changed.

Re: Cape Town could be the first city to run out of water

#25

Post by 21 »

baxtr wrote: post #16

I always wondered why you can buy a lot of H2O filled fruits like grapes from South Africa in Europa. They must have some enourmous amounts of water if they can export it. Maybe the price of water isn’t high enough yet or can’t be paid?

South Africa is not a desert - http://www.grainsa.co.za/images/Articles/2012-08/reenval_fig...

Re: Cape Town could be the first city to run out of water

#26

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

nukeop wrote: post #12
overlordalex wrote: post #3

I live in Cape Town, and this article is missing some points about whats been going on: 1. "Day 0" has been moved forward - we're now expected to run out of water 21 April. 2. The daily limit of water per person is 87l but only ~50% of consumers meet this target 3. This is considered a 1/1000 year event (in contrast to 1/100 experienced elsewhere in the country recently). However due to increased population this is b…

I thought climate change was supposed to provide easier access to water?

It should not be surprising that the effects of climate change vary from place to place as weather systems move or are disrupted.

Cape Town is at the bottom of Africa, but at 33.9° S it is roughly as far south as Tunisia and the Mediterranean, or Los Angeles, California are north. To pick other coastal places.

The climate is "Mediterranean" with rain in winter sweeping in over the sea from the west, and hot dry summers. (1)

But the area to the north of Cape Town, towards the equator is dryer, even along the coast. In fact it becomes harsh desert by the time you reach Namibia (2).

So it only takes a small shift of the weather systems away from the equator to impact the winter rainfall that reaches Cape Town.

1)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Town#Climate

http://www.capewatersolutions.co.za/rainwater-harvesting/cap...

2)

http://www.grainsa.co.za/images/Articles/2012-08/reenval_fig...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skeleton_Coast

Re: Cape Town could be the first city to run out of water

#27

Post by snthpy »

snowwolf wrote: post #23

This has also led to an interesting social experiment based on a theory developed by the University of California ( http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272494414... ) where household water consumption has been made public ( https://citymaps.capetown.gov.za/waterviewer/ ) in order to apply social pressure on high users.

Cape Town also has this now, although the usage levels are very granular:

https://citymaps.capetown.gov.za/waterviewer/

Re: Cape Town could be the first city to run out of water

#28

Post by VoidWhisperer »

snowwolf wrote: post #23

This has also led to an interesting social experiment based on a theory developed by the University of California ( http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272494414... ) where household water consumption has been made public ( https://citymaps.capetown.gov.za/waterviewer/ ) in order to apply social pressure on high users.

The second link has been hugged to death or is down (it will get to the loading bars and stop there)

Re: Cape Town could be the first city to run out of water

#29

Post by devnull791101 »

even though the dams are almost depleted the city's lack of water is more due to political issues than water management. the government is insisting that the local desalination plant manufacturer (which supplies australia and other countries) operate through a "Black Economic Empowerment" partner which heavily inflates the cost, and most likely will be tied to "the worlds most corrupt presidents" partners in crime, the Gupta family.

Re: Cape Town could be the first city to run out of water

#30

Post by [deleted] »

pure-awesome wrote: post #20

Watch out for Waterseer. Not sure I trust that company after their ludicrous misjudgement in their first invention: [Thunderfoot Video]( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVsqIjAeeXw ) [Lindybeige Video]( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zfYAXWODUs ) Side-note: I live in the Cape Town area. We got on international news! Yay us...? Honestly, I'm pretty worried.

[deleted]
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