The City of Cape Town has praised water users for further decreasing their usage resulting in a drop in consumption over the last week. The average water consumption for the previous week was 505 million-litres per day, which is 20-million litres per day down from the preceding week.
Dam levels increased by 2,9% to 24% due to good rainfall, but it’s too early to let your guard down, says the city.
“While we may be tempted to relax our guard as the weather cools and more rain falls, winter water saving remains vital. The less we use, the longer we can stretch the water supply in our dams in case we again receive below average rainfall,” the City said in a statement.
Deputy Mayor, Ian Neilson stressed that saving must continue, irrespective of the weather, and locals must continue to live the 50-litre life until the dams fill up sufficiently.
“The National Department of Water and Sanitation requires that we reduce our water usage to 450-million litres per day. There is a real threat that if we cannot lower usage further, then even tougher restrictions could be imposed by the national department,” he said.
A water map, monitoring saving efforts across the city, showed that 211 000 households have achieved the dark green water-saving dot. This marks a slight decrease, but Neilson said it is heartening to see that a large number of households are still going green.
Consumption is indicated on the map as follows:
- Dark green dot: household using less than 6 000 litres per month
- Light green dot: household using between 6 000 and 10 500 litres per month
- Grey dot with small dark green centre: estimated water meter reading of less than 6 000 litres per month
- Grey dot with small light green centre: estimated water meter reading of less than 10 500 litres per month
- Solid grey dot: excluded property (including: sectional title property or group housing / undeveloped property / water use is zero / no available information for the property / estimated water meter reading of more than 10 500 litres per month)