Cape Town’s dam levels remain very low at 20.9% on 7 May.
But a key difference is that the city’s residents use a lot less water now than then.
Water use last week averaged 519 million litres per day compared to well over 700 million litres daily at the same time last year.
While commendable, it’s not sustainable.
The City regularly publishes updates on how municipal water is being augmented (added to) by drilling for water in the aquifers (groundwater), desalination, recycling and increasing dam water (surface water).
Here are the main measures the City is taking to increase the water supply: Implement a new water reuse (recycling) plant on the Cape Flats producing 70 million litres per day by 2020.
Increase the amount of surface water available by about 60 million litres daily (this depends on national government projects too).
Also, UCT scientists estimate that the City could augment the water supply by about 100 million litres daily by clearing alien plants that are preventing water from getting into the dams.
The main dams providing water to the farms, Theewaterskloof (11.3% now vs 16.3% same week last year) and Voëlvlei (14.4% vs 18.8%), are at considerably lower levels than last year.
Many farms will struggle to survive if the drought continues.