LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Drought-stricken Cape Town could run out of water as soon as April, but South Africa is not alone in its struggle as ever more world cities battle acute water shortages.
Water scarcity already affects more than 40 percent of the world’s population and is expected to rise due to global warming, with one in four people projected to face chronic or recurring shortages by 2050, according to the United Nations.
Following are some of the crisis cities:
The reservoir supplying Sao Paulo, Brazil’s largest city and a metropolitan region of 20 million people, nearly dried up in 2015, as the country faced its worst drought in 80 years, depriving many residents of water for 12 hours a day.
The city has been working to improve watersheds in the Andes mountains, while residents in hillside shantytowns overlooking the city have been using nets to condense thick fog from the Pacific Ocean into drainage pipes.
Amman, the capital city of Jordan, has no nearby source of water and regularly experiences drought, while its lower-lying parts are inundated when it rains heavily.
The government is moving ahead with new pipelines for groundwater and projects to desalinate water from the Red Sea.
Built on what was once a lake, it is also prone to flooding.
The Australian city suffered the so-called ‘Millennium drought’ between 1997 and 2009.
Originally planned to support about 1 million people, the Afghan capital is now home to more than 4.6 million, according to U.S. government estimates.