Cape Town’s Drought, A Frightening Reminder to Make Water Conservation a Way of Life
By: Marc Yaggi
Co-written by Marc Yaggi and Gabrielle Segal
It is hard to believe that a city could run out of water; for a ‘Day Zero’ to actually take place. Yet, it is happening in the legislative capital of South Africa: Cape Town. So what does this mean, and could anything have been done to prevent such a catastrophe? These are important questions because Cape Town is not the only place that is experiencing extreme water shortages.
California has been dealing with acute droughts since 2011. Although California Governor Jerry Brown officially declared the drought over in 2017, the after-effects are long-lasting, and low precipitation this winter has many concerned that the state will soon have to declare a drought again. Severe drought and water mismanagement in Syria and Iran resulted in the displacement of millions of people, sparking social uprisings and political conflicts. Water shortage is a global issue with many implications. Understanding what happened in Cape Town, Syria, and Iran can help prevent similar water management and conservation issues in the future.
It is easy to take water availability for granted when there is running water in your faucet. South Africa is predicted to soon face the worst case scenario — no running water. South Africa relies on dams for its potable water supply. Before the severe drought that started in 2015, rainfall kept water resources in South Africa at a stable level, and Cape Town made sweeping conservation efforts, such as fixing leaking pipes, that were smart and effective. However, the near sole reliance on rainwater was a huge flaw: Officials did not account for climate change and the possibility of a multi-year long drought. According to The New York Times, South Africa’s Department of Water Affairs, “citing the impacts of climate change,” warned that Cape Town needed to diversify its drinking water sources back in 2007. The water crisis in Cape Town was instigated by a mix of problems, and what comes next could be disastrous.
What happens after the city runs out of drinkable water? As seen in previous cases of extreme droughts and water shortages, ReliefWeb posits that there will likely be “massive outward migration, which will drive up water use in other parts of the country and increase the dangers of overexploitation.” Many researchers, scientists, and social and political scientists have noticed a pattern: A crisis of water shortage feeds into “popular discontent” and “unrest” in already fragile areas. In Syria, which has been caught up in a devastating civil war since 2011, a drought that lasted from 2006 to 2009 resulted in the mass migration from the countryside to cities. Cities did not have the infrastructure to support the sudden influx of people, thus driving mass unemployment among the large youth population. Syrians, already frustrated by Bashar al-Assad’s authoritarian rule, started protesting in 2011. Al Assad crushed the uprising, but it led to a civil war with devastating impacts. As a result, thousands of people have been killed and millions have been displaced.
Researchers have found that the extreme drought in Syria was caused by a mixture of factors, including climate change along with “misguided agricultural and water-use policies of the Syrian government.” An eerily similar situation occurred in Iran, where already scarce water resources in an increasingly hot and dry region were mismanaged by the government. Iranians living in rural areas were pushed to move to cities and became more aware of political corruption. Anti-government protests broke out in December of 2017 and have continued. While the primary cause of unrest in many of these nations is a fragile political system, water shortages are recognized as “one of the most common, most visible markers of the government’s failure to deliver basic services.”
Many fear that what happened in Iran and Syria could happen in South Africa, a country with one of the worst disparities between the “haves” and the “have-nots” in the world. Water stress has been a catalyst for conflict in India and a handful of countries in the horn of Africa as well, highlighting the connection between environmental hazards to economic and social instability. It is all the more important to protect what available clean water we have from pollution and other threats. New York City is able to provide clean, unfiltered water to residents because it protects clean water at its source, something our Waterkeepers constantly fight for. Source water protection is cost efficient (filtration plants cost billions of dollars), helps local communities economically, and is essential in protecting human and environmental health in the long term. Such precautions are necessary, because the possibility of running out of our water resources is a reality — and the effects are frightening.
There are some possible positive outcomes of what’s happening in Cape Town. “Cape Town might just be the right moment to provoke paradigm shift… Public awareness is high, hence there is political willingness to come up with solutions,” writes senior lecturer in water science Dr. Anne Van Loon. However, some solutions like desalination are costly, energy intensive and environmentally destructive, and can actually increase water demand in the long term. “The truth is that engineering options are seen as easier and less politically sensitive then actually managing water demand,” continues Dr. Van Loon. Yet making water conservation a way of life, rather than just making it a practice during periods of high water stress, is key. Residents of Melbourne, realizing the positive environmental impacts of water conservation, maintained habits implemented during a severe drought. California Waterkeepers have actively been trying to make water conservation a way of life, fighting for “efficiency and conservation, not only in times of emergency, but also as a full-time strategy for a state challenged by increasingly extreme conditions as a result of climate change.”
There are a number of ways to conserve water. Melbourne, for example, has been successful because of increased use of recycled water, massive efforts to reduce leaky pipes, and long-term plans for both dry and wet periods. Effective water conservation comes from a combined effort between the public and policymakers. One of the worst things to do is to go back to our old water-using habits once a drought ends. Cape Town is currently under restricted water usage, 50 liters a day per person. That number will go down drastically after Day Zero. This interactive page shows how much water the average person uses doing daily things, such as showering and flushing the toilet, exemplifying how little 50 liters of water a day is.
Even if Cape Town recovers, warmer, drier seasons are becoming the norm as the climate continues to change. It is likely that another, more severe drought may occur in the near future. In order to avoid overexploitation of our increasingly fragile waters, to avoid human suffering from water deprivation and even war, we must ensure the safety of clean water by utilizing water conservation techniques. No matter where we are in the world, we can all help conserve water — find useful tips on how to save water here and how to make water conservation a way of life here.