Experiences From a Water Starved Cape Town
What would happen if a large metropolitan area ran out of water? How would the residents deal with such an approaching calamity?
Cape Town is the only urban area in the world that has ever faced a real possibility of running out of water. The experience of the city is a cautionary tale for people around the world.
In 2017, Cape Town narrowly escaped the fate of becoming the world’s first city to run out of water. Three years of below-normal rainfall was all it took for it to get there. The city was just a few weeks away from turning off all taps when, at the behest of Cape Town municipality, people came together to act, changing their way of life almost instantly.
My Experience of Cape Town
I visited Cape Town in February 2017, when the city was just four weeks away from Day Zero — the day it would have run out of water. What I saw there both reassured and scared me. I was scared to see the challenge that awaited Indian cities — over 21 major cities in India run the risk of running water in the 2020s. I was reassured because I saw how the residents of Cape Town pulled together and averted the crisis, albeit narrowly.
How was this crisis averted?
I learned that the residents had been getting a restricted supply of water for months. Wasteful uses such as car washing, swimming pools, and water fountains were prohibited, and water pressure was reduced to minimize wastage from leakages. Many areas received water only for certain hours of the day. Strict water rationing was in place and people were not allowed to use more than their quotas.
The residents also united to reduce consumption. Do you know the activity that consumes the most water in our homes? It is the flushing of our toilets. I didn’t know this until I visited Cape Town. In fact, it was the first thing I was asked not to do. Funnily, I was warned about it even before I arrived, by the gentleman who sat next to me on the flight. He was a local resident who was simply worried that tourists coming into his city at such a time would bring with them their wastefulness with regards to water and ultimately cause the doom of life in Cape Town. Anyway, he had one request from the bottom of his heart — please do your daily business in one go so that you don’t need to flush your toilet more than once a day. Our hotel too (very politely) asked us to use the urinals in the common restroom so we wouldn’t have to flush when we peed.
They also installed an alarm that would start ringing if the shower was on for more than three minutes. I grew up in a boarding school that had three-minute showers, and I was really happy when I graduated and this restriction ended. I never wanted to experience it again. But in Cape Town I did, and I’m concerned it won’t be the last time I face this problem. Anyway, the residents of Cape Town did not just avert this crisis by being judicious with flushing. They did it by being judicious with everything. Most people became extremely judicious about the time they would spend in a shower. At breakfast, the hotel staff would often ask guests if they had a short or a long shower. When the threat of being water-poor becomes your reality, then privacy — or hygiene, for that matter — becomes a luxury that society is quick to discard.
People suddenly became extremely thoughtful of what they would wash. Hotels, too, began asking guests to not have their linen or towels changed unless absolutely necessary. Restaurants began advertising that they were serving in disposable plates so that they would have fewer utensils to wash (for now, the problem of plastic pollution could wait).
The only aspect of water consumption that remained unchanged through this crisis was drinking water. While this gave some respite to the residents, it also terrified them. What would happen if they ran out of water? They would have to literally ration their drinking water as well. Not having enough water to drink is a rather scary thing to happen to any human being, and this was an entire city that saw the real possibility of running into this fate.
Eventually, due to these hard measures, the city was able to push back Day Zero, one day at a time. Fortunately, nature rewarded them with some rain, and for now, the crisis has been averted. However, this adversity forever changed the residents’ attitude towards water. They no longer take the matter lightly. Today Cape Town is becoming one of the most judicious cities in terms of water management. In 2018, the city’s daily water consumption fell to about 87 liters per person per day. In 2012, five years before the crisis, it was nearly three times more at 224 liters. There is still a margin for improvement, and this crisis has forced the city to become as efficient with water as possible.
My reason for sharing this experience with you is twofold. First, I hope it will help you realize the dangers our lives face unless we become judicious with our water resources. Many things that we take for granted today (like the number of times we flush the toilet) could potentially become a real concern in the future. If we do not save our water resources, we will have to reimagine our personal standards for health and hygiene. Second, I hope you would realize that what the residents of Cape Town did was extremely difficult. It required absolutely unwavering focus and discipline from a city of 4 million. Not everyone would be able to make such big changes so quickly, especially in large countries such as India. Thus, if more cities were to really approach Day Zero, then at least some would fall prey to it.
While Cape Town may have averted this catastrophe, it will not be the last city to face this situation in the twenty-first century. There will be others, and some will not be able to find the right fix as Cape Town did. The only way to solve this problem once and for all is to act now, or else our future will include cities without water.
What can we do Today to Solve the Water Crisis?
The first step towards solving this crisis has to be to reduce water wastage. In India, it is projected that we waste nearly 30% of all our water in our farms and homes. The global averages are similar. For example, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency, an average American home can save about 20% of its water footprint by simply installing water-efficient appliances and fixtures. That is a startling figure when you consider the fact that many people in the developing world still do not have access to clean water. We could solve this problem if we simply cared enough.
Reducing water wastage by judicious use in our homes and farms has to be prioritized. A dripping tap for instance wastes nearly 21 liters of water per day. If enough people simply cared about avoiding this wastefulness, then we would be able to derive some serious benefits for society at large.
The next important step has to be water recycling. Ultimately, freshwater or water that is fit for human consumption is a very small percentage of the available water resources of the planet and we need to recycle it.
Today, groundwater in our cities is reducing at a fatal pace. The reason is simple, we are using more than what is being added through the rains. Rapid urbanization has ensured that rainwater is often not able to seep into the ground and recharge groundwater. This problem can very easily be solved if we designed our cities better to harvest rainwater.
Lastly, while all of this is needed, the most important step in solving this problem has to be to solve climate change at large. We cannot expect our micro solutions to have any macro consequences if we are constantly disrupting the natural forces that are critical for life on Earth.
The 2020s are a critical decade in our fight against climate change and it is our responsibility to fight for life here on Earth. Unless we do so, we run the risk of living in a future where water becomes a luxury that few can afford.
