Almost 2 million tourists flock to Cape Town every year to bathe on sandy white beaches, explore natural features like Table Mountain or to sip wine in dozens of nearby vineyards.
Travel and tourism accounted for an estimated 9 percent or 412 billion rand ($33 billion) of South Africa’s economic output last year, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council.
“At the current rate the city is likely to reach Day Zero on 22 April,” said councilor Xanthea Limberg, Cape Town’s mayoral committee member for water.
“There is a real risk that residents will have to line up.” At a trial water collection site, similar to an estimated 200 the city may introduce, people line up between metal fences waiting to fill up containers from standpipes.
A maximum 25 litres of water will be provided per person, per day, officials said.
Water levels are seen at about 24 percent full at Voelvlei Dam, one of the regions largest water catchment dams, near Cape Town, South Africa, November 8, 2017.
Businesses in the hospitality industry also say they are trying to help, limiting showers to two minutes and using water used for washing dishes and clothes to water gardens.
Authorities want to reduce the city’s consumption to 500 million litres a day – half the amount used two years ago.
Signs warn residents of water restrictions in Cape Town, South Africa October 17, 2017.
Residents will have to line up for water when dams reach 13.5 percent.

One of the world’s favorite tourism designations, South Africa’s iconic city of Cape Town, has less than a 100 days of water supply left if a drought is not relieved soon.
The city’s mayor, Patricia de Lille, has again urged Capetonians to conserve water in order to avoid “day zero,” now forecast for April 21.
It is important that all residents must continue to save water, despite the City’s work to secure new water sources.
— Patricia de Lille (@PatriciaDeLille) January 11, 2018 The debilitating water shortage has forced city government to implement an online water consumption map, which will allow residents to check up on their neighbors’ water habits based on households’ municipal bills.
The website‚ formally launched this week‚ has already prompted a wave of social media comment, most of it negative.
But the city council defended the initiative‚ which it says is aimed at increasing residents’ awareness of water consumption.
“The potential water-saving benefit for all of Cape Town of making water consumption indicators publicly available outweighs any privacy issues at this stage of the crisis‚” mayoral spokeswoman Zara Nicholson said.
It is the provincial capital of the Western Cape.
Apart from asking neighbors to keep an eye on each other’s consumption, the city has also been preparing how to deal with what looks like an inevitable shut down of the taps.
The distribution points would operate 24 hours a day and a public health communications campaign will be mounted in advance to ensure that all sanitation systems continue to function and limit the risk of disease.

About 6.2 million people in Somalia – half the population – need emergency aid, such as food, water and shelter, due to unprecedented drought and ongoing conflict, the United Nations said on Wednesday, appealing for $1.6 billion.
The drought – spanning four consecutive poor rainy seasons – has forced millions from their homes and left hundreds of thousands of children malnourished.
One in four people in the Horn of Africa nation faces the risk of hunger.
Somalia’s 2011 famine killed 260,000 people, half of whom died before the official declaration of famine, caused by drought, war and lack of access for humanitarian aid.
Its weak, Western-backed government is struggling to assert control over poor, rural areas under the Islamist militant group al Shabaab – challenging the delivery of aid to the most needy.
Somali Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khayre thanked the international community for the $1.3 billion raised last year, but warned there was no room for complacency.
"We face similar challenges and risks this year and the years to follow," said Hassan.
"Drought and conflict will continue to affect the lives of millions of Somalis.
They will continue to displace thousands more.
I request on behalf of the government and Somali people for continued support from international partners."

OFFICIALS in South Africa have warned that water levels in Cape Town are dangerously low – and could run dry in a as little as 90 days.
What is a drought?
A drought is a period of weather when there is less than a third of a country’s usual rainfall.
Here in Britain, a drought becomes official after just 15 days of minimal wet weather (less than 0.2mm of rain).
Could Britain be heading for a hosepipe ban?
For example, prohibiting the use of hosepipes to water household gardens”.
The Environment Agency, which would issue the permit, also warns of a summer drought in the South East and urged people to conserve water.
During a ban, you can’t use a hosepipe to: Water your garden Clean your car, taxi or private boat Water plants Fill a paddling pool or domestic swimming pool Clean your home’s walls, windows, patios, paths or garden furniture Fill a domestic pond (unless it has fish) Domestic recreational use (i.e. water fights or using a hose to cool down) Fill a fountain in your garden When was the last UK hosepipe ban?
The last UK drought was in 2012, forcing several water companies to impose hosepipe bans in April of the same year.
Watering your garden with a can and washing your car with a bucket of water are also allowed during bans.

When most of us think about the threats posed by climate change, events like floods, droughts, intense storms and hotter temperatures come to mind.
These are all, according to the vast majority of scientists, exactly what we can expect to see more and more of.
However, what is often overlooked are the sociopolitical consequences of these climatic changes.
In other words, we tend to view these natural disasters in a vacuum without recognizing the myriad ways in which climate change is both directly and indirectly shaping economies, cultures and governments.
This being the case, looking back at conflicts such as those in Syria and the Sudan, it has become increasingly clear that climate change played a role in triggering the instability that led to these conflicts.
Which begs the question: could these conflicts have been prevented through non-political measures that responded to changes in climate?
The answer increasingly seems to be yes.
Further developments in biotechnology and a deeper understanding of what triggered the conflicts in Syria and Sudan point to novel prevention solutions grounded in modern agriculture.
The arrival of genetically engineered (GE) drought-tolerant crops that can withstand longer and more intense droughts could have the potential to prevent future conflicts.
Read full, original post: GMO crops could help stem famine and future global conflicts

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) – Drought conditions have returned to Arizona because of precipitation well below normal since August.
A drought monitor released late last week by the National Weather Service shows much of extreme northern Arizona and northeastern Arizona in severe drought and the rest of the state in moderate drought.
The areas shown as having severe drought conditions include most of Apache and Navajo counties, extreme northern Coconino County, eastern Gila County, northern Graham and Greenlee Counties, northeastern Pinal County and areas south of Tucson.
Since October 1st, Tucson has received 0.59" of rainfall, which is 2.25" below normal.
While last week’s storm brought welcome rain and snow to northern AZ, it barely made a dent in the large precipitation deficit over the region since Oct. 1st.
For Flagstaff, the storm only brought us up to around 20% of the normal total from Oct. 1st through Jan. 14th.
#azwx pic.twitter.com/XlO2acWHiQ — NWS Flagstaff (@NWSFlagstaff) January 16, 2018 A 90-day outlook by the weather service’s Flagstaff office says fuel conditions in northern Arizona are near or above historic high levels.

The Global Rundown Consecutive years of failed rains continue to plague Kenya.
U.S. lawmakers urge President Trump to include climate change in his national security strategy.
Street vendors riot in Lusaka, Zambia, as the government shuts down stalls in an effort to contain a cholera outbreak.
Ethiopia seeks to ease tensions with Egypt over concerns about the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.
Thousands in Somalia are homeless after security forces destroy aid camps.
“I was a farmer but I lost everything to the drought and I cannot go back now because the security situation is terrible there.
By The Numbers 106 Number of U.S. representatives, representing nearly a quarter of the House, who urged President Trump to reconsider the exclusion of climate change in his national security strategy.
70 Number of people who have died in Zambia following a three month outbreak of cholera.
Al Jazeera Science, Studies, And Reports A report by the Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) states that consecutive years of failed rains have left millions in Kenya in need of food, and the situation is unlikely to change in 2018.
However, long rains are expected to be at least average in the western and central areas of Kenya.

L atest statistics by the National Drought Warning and Monitoring Center show that this year’s autumn (Sept. 23-Dec. 21) was the driest over the past 67 years, with precipitation levels declining by 53% compared to the long-term average, a warning that drought conditions will worsen.
Data from Iran Water Resources Management Company (a subsidiary of the Energy Ministry) show that the level of rainfall in the autumn of 2015 was around 88.7 millimeters that decreased to 39.5 mm in the following year and dropped further to 29.3 mm this year.
Except for Qarequm that has received 1.2 mm more rainfall this autumn than in the same period of last year, other watersheds have experienced declines of between 9 and 20 mm.
The level of rainfall in the entire country registered a 26% decline compared with the previous autumn and 53% compared with the 49-year average.
The Urmia watershed was the next area to be hit by lack of rainfall.
Some 10% are also affected by very serious drought.
Some experts have attributed the water crisis to climate change, while others believe it is caused by the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the air.
The ancient structures such as qanats and rainwater collection ponds indicate that the issue has existed in the country for ages.
The expansion of industries and growth in population, however, have exceeded the development of water management technologies, leading to desiccation of wetlands and rivers.
Experts have long warned that there is no hope of climatic amelioration and the only way out is to properly manage the available resources by drawing both on modern sciences and indigenous methods, in addition to optimizing water consumption.

Homes on private wells could continue watering their lawns during a drought even when homes connected to municipal systems have to stop, under a bill being considered in the state Legislature.
“Private wells are private property and this has always been the legal tradition – we have what are called riparian rights,” said Rep. Daniel Itse, R-Fremont, the prime sponsor of the bill, HB 1226.
Itse argues that in such a case, property owners should be paid by communities to compensate them for not being able to use their wells.
“If the state were to allow damages to the property owner, for loss of property, that would be acceptable,” he said.
“It’s a continuing encroachment upon property rights, a change in the terms under which property was bought.
The government needs to be held accountable for that.” The bill would still allow municipalities to limit outdoor water usage by homes connected to public water supplies.
In the summer, total water use increases to 93 gallons per capita per day due to outdoor water use, which is mostly attributed to lawn watering,” according to the 2017 municipal drought guidelines issued by the Department of Environmental Services.
The current law (RSA 41:11-d) says communities can restrict “residential outdoor lawn watering when administrative agencies of the state or federal government have designated the region as being under a declared state or condition of drought.” There have been efforts to expand the authority by allowing municipalities to keep business from doing outdoor watering as well as private residents but those have not gone anywhere in the Legislature.
Last year a version passed both houses but was sent back to committee, where it effectively died.
(David Brooks can be reached at 369-3313 or dbrooks@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @GraniteGeek)

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) – Rain over the weekend in drought-hit areas of Argentina’s farm belt helped growers plant soy in fields that had been at risk of staying barren this season, Natalia Gattinoni, weather expert with the INTA national climate institute, said on Monday.
Farmers have been worried that excessively dry conditions in the northern part of the bread-basket province of Buenos Aires would persist, blocking them from planting soy in some areas.
For example, parts of Cordoba province and the key area Junin in northern Buenos Aires got more than 50 millimeters of rain, she added.
“It rained quite a bit in the northern part of the country over the weekend.
It did not rain here but we had already planted all the soy we planned to sow,” said Fernando Meoli, a farmer in 9 de Julio and 25 de Mayo in the southern part of Argentina’s main Pampas farm belt.
Meoli said his area got 20 millimeters of rain during the previous weekend, which allowed him to finish sowing last week.
He says the region’s soy plants will be in a delicate stage of development early next month, requiring more ground moisture.
“The key to getting good soy yields will be how much rain falls in the first ten days of February.
Argentine farmers will harvest 52 million tonnes of soy in the 2017/18 season, the Rosario grains exchange said last week, citing drought as its reason for cutting its previous forecast of 54.5 million tonnes.
The later soy is sown, the higher the risk that early frosts will kill the crop before the May and June harvest months.