Where Do You Think Water Fits Into Your Life? When did you last bath?

With the continued lack of rainfall in the middle of a drought season, the dams in the Western Cape are critically low and water restrictions are becoming severe.

To ease the pressure on the water supply, a repeat of last year, Day Zero has been introduced and has steadily been moved forward as the situation is being regulated through water restrictions by the municipality.

The estimated date of Day Zero is based on the consumption of the six big dams that feed Cape Town and the Western Cape Area. It is calculated by the daily estimated water consumption from the previous week. Currently Day Zero falls on the 9th of July 2018.  

An overall of 44 main dams feed to whole Western Province.

Cape Town, which is continually expanding and the population steadily increasing, has been the most severely hit and talked about concerning the implementation of Water Restrictions and long-term solutions to prevent future scarcity of water.

In the Franschhoek Area, the Berg River Dam has a reported storage level of 52.3 %, dropping 0.01% since last week. However, just on the other side of Franschhoek Pass, Theewaterskloof Dam, has a current storage level of 11%, having dropped from 11.7% last week.

The following information on Water Level Restrictions comes from the Western Cape Government Website. These are the current levels of water restrictions reported:

Current water restrictions for Western Cape Municipalities  

·       Beaufort West Municipality - level 4B

·       Bergrivier Municipality - level 2

·       Bitou Municipality - level 1

·       Breede Valley Municipality - level 3B

·       Cederberg Municipality - level 2

·       Cape Agulhas Municipality -  level 1

·       City of Cape Town -  level 6B 

·       Drakenstein Municipality - level 6 

·       George Municipality - level 2B

·       Hessequa Municipality - level 1

·       Kannaland Municipality - level 3

·       Knysna Municipality - level 3

·       Laingsburg Municipality - level 1

·       Langeberg Municipality - level 2

·       Matzikama Municipality - level 2

·       Mossel Bay Municipality - no restrictions

·       Overstrand Municipality - level 1

·       Oudtshoorn Municipality - no restrictions

·       Prince Albert Municipality - level 1

·       Saldanha Municipality - level 5 

·       Stellenbosch Municipality - level 5 

·       Swartland Municipality - level 5 

·       Swellendam Municipality - no restrictions

·       Theeswaterskloof Municipality - level 3

·       Witzenberg Municipality - level 4

https://www.westerncape.gov.za/general-publication/latest-western-cape-dam-levels

Go to the above website for more information and to check out the update on dam levels in the Western Cape by selecting a dam on the displayed map on their website supplied by the national Department of Water and Sanitation.

This drought has been an amazing awareness campaign for the future on how ecosystems services play such an important role not just in our domestic homes but in industry as well. Ecosystem services look after us, we must learn to look after them.