Reservoirs supplying city of 4 million are nearing bottom during record-setting drought.
A city of 4 million people, Cape Town is banning outdoor water use in response to the worst drought in more than a century.
“Flushing only when needed can help save up to 9 liters (2.4 gallons) of water per flush.” Every drop counts these days in South Africa’s second-largest city.
“The feeling is that we should be OK this year,” Kristy Carden, a water management researcher at the University of Cape Town’s Future Water Institute, told Circle of Blue.
Peak use in January, which is the height of summer in the Southern Hemisphere and when demand is highest, was down roughly 20 percent compared to a year ago.
Water managers want daily use to fall to 450 megaliters through the winter, an “easily achievable target,” according to the Future Water Institute.
A megaliter is one million liters, or 264,000 gallons.
It is a move that Cape Town officials are considering, if they need to tap the bottom 10 percent of their reservoirs.
“There is little doubt that the Western Cape needs to prepare, in the longer term, for a drier climate,” according to the Alliance for Collaboration and Earth Systems Science.
Treated residential wastewater and rainfall are funneled to filtration basins that replenish the aquifer.