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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

#121

Post by igitur »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #90
wonderwonder wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does government corruption / incompetence come into play in making this situation worse than it should be?

> Does government corruption / incompetence come into play Of course there is a political dimension. The SA national government (ANC) is from a different party to the Cape Town local government (Democratic Alliance, the main opposition party). So there is tension between local and national governments. They try to make each other look bad. Hard to prove, it it does look like the National government is either just neg…

I'm not entirely convinced that it is due to malice. Keep in mind that the Department of Water and Sanitation has been declared bankrupt, so I think it's mostly incompetence.

http://ewn.co.za/2017/02/12/report-water-and-sanitation-depa...

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

#122

Post by patejam »

opportune wrote: post #101
pixl97 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>2. The city has lost R1.6b ($130m) in water fees due to reduced usage, so now we're facing a "drought tax". To me this is bullshit but thats a whole other post. Why? In already deployed networks, decreased usage means the cost per client, or the cost per unit used will go up. This is a problem with any network that charges for delivery based on usage and cannot easily cut off unused parts of the network.

Because that shouldn't be charged after the fact, ideally it should be priced into the water prices as consumers purchase it.

That's assuming pricing scales linearly.

More likely, it takes a flat-ish $x to maintain the infrastructure, and the reduced usage means they can't reach that minimum $x threshold.

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

#123

Post by igitur »

We are a couple living in Cape Town. For the past 6 months we've been averaging 60 litres per person per day, with a downward trend. We don't have a swimming pool. We don't water the garden or lawn. It looks hideous, but those steps were easy gains.

It's our water closet habits that had to change drastically. If it's yellow, let it mellow. If it's brown, let it drown. We shower, very quickly, with 2 buckets and try to catch as much water as possible. We turn off the shower while lathering up with soap and would dip our sponges in the buckets if we need to add water to the mix. It's basically taking a bucket bath in a shower and a quick rinse afterwards.

We use the gathered water to drown the brown. Sometimes a quick flush with water from the cistern is necessary, but we can limit the flush by lifting the lever (unlike older cisterns).

Other people have installed tanks in their backyards to collect rainwater from the roof, but we don't have the space.

It's an inconvenience, but so far it hasn't been too difficult to get under the 87 litre target. It just required some attention, and very importantly, frequent monitoring. Frankly, I'm disgusted that more than half of my fellow citizens couldn't reach the target.

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

#124

Post by mnglkhn2 »

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…

It’s going to get worse before it gets better (if)!

Your description point to infrastructure decay.

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

#125

Post by SolarNet »

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 the point 3. Climate change is causing many 1/1000 and 1/100 type events to happen more often; especially as it relates to rainfall, like record droughts and monsoons. I wouldn't be surprised if this is the new normal because of that as well (which will make the population issue even worse).

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

#126

Post by SeoxyS »

logingone wrote: post #68
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…

Regarding the policy being set at national level - I've seen mention of the Western Cape seceding - how realistic was that, and has this had any effect on that? I'm ex Durban/Johannesburg, abandoned the rainbow nation 20 or so years ago with zero confidence in its future, and I'm afraid it was the right call; part of me would love to return, and the WC (there's a pun there) seceding would interest me for a move there…

Agreed entirely. Used to live in Durban and left >10 years ago now with zero confidence in the nation. I won't be surprised to see the whole country descend into chaos soon.

The apartheid government may have been morally reprehensible, but at least it knew how to run a country. Either option is kind of shitty…

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

#127

Post by SeoxyS »

wonderwonder wrote: post #61
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…

Does government corruption / incompetence come into play in making this situation worse than it should be?

Government corruption and incompetence is 100% responsible for this, not climate change.

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

#128

Post by dragonwriter »

SeoxyS wrote: post #126
logingone wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding the policy being set at national level - I've seen mention of the Western Cape seceding - how realistic was that, and has this had any effect on that? I'm ex Durban/Johannesburg, abandoned the rainbow nation 20 or so years ago with zero confidence in its future, and I'm afraid it was the right call; part of me would love to return, and the WC (there's a pun there) seceding would interest me for a move there…

Agreed entirely. Used to live in Durban and left >10 years ago now with zero confidence in the nation. I won't be surprised to see the whole country descend into chaos soon. The apartheid government may have been morally reprehensible, but at least it knew how to run a country. Either option is kind of shitty…

The apartheid government no longer exists because it caused the country to descend into so much chaos that the rulers gave up trying to continue.

So, by the standard you imply with your comparison, the apartheid government—even more certainly than the present regime—did not know how to run a country.

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

#129

Post by johndevor »

wonderwonder wrote: post #61
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…

Does government corruption / incompetence come into play in making this situation worse than it should be?

I think this is a decent summary:

https://youtu.be/nOvmjs0J_QQ

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

#130

Post by candiodari »

That last paragraph, literally following the statement before it just makes me mad :

"But there is a sense that much of this technology is merely tinkering at the edges. The overarching issue is the potentially devastating effect of global warming on water availability and how we, collectively, endeavour to tackle it."

Unfortunately this statement is absurd. The real cause:

"Most recent projections suggest that its water could run out as early as March. The crisis has been caused by three years of very low rainfall, coupled with increasing consumption by a growing population."

So an extremely rare event is causing a water shortage. How has climate change affected this ? Well, it has moved the average of the distribution of rainfall by a few percent (at most).

How far are we from the average ? Close to 3 sigma away from it, and increasing every day. If the city actually runs out of water we'll be closer to 4 sigma before it happens.

So how much influence does climate change have on it. Opening my python client I feel like it can be distributed as such:

1) 99.99999% is a coincidence (a series of unrelated events spanning 4+ years causing a lack of rainfall in the area)

2) 0.00001% is climate change

In other words, if you solved climate change today, nothing at all would change for this city. And yet that claim from the BBC gets inserted there.

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