South Africa

GROUNDUP

Cape Town’s dam levels higher than this time last year

Cape Town’s dam levels higher than this time last year
Theewaterskloof Dam during a severe drought in the Western Cape on 24 April 2018. Photo: Ashraf Hendricks In the last couple of weeks the amount of water in the dams supplying Cape Town has overtaken the 2017 levels.

Cape Town’s Big Six dams are at 24% compared to 19.8% in the same week in 2017.

First published by GroundUp

In the last couple of weeks the amount of water in the dams supplying Cape Town has overtaken the 2017 levels.

The City of Cape Town’s Water Dashboard shows that as of 28 May the dam levels are at 24% versus 19.8% in the same week in 2017. Also, the dam levels rose nearly three percentage points from last week’s 21.1%. This is a consequence of the recent rain and Capetonians using much less water. Last week the city used a mere 505 million litres of water per day. Compare this to last year when on 29 May the City said:

Disappointingly, consumption remains at 666 million litres [daily], which is above the consumption target of 600 million litres.”

The dam levels on 28 May 2018 versus the same week in 2017 are:

  • Berg River: 43.3% vs 31%
  • Steenbras Lower: 33.7% vs 23.8%
  • Steenbras Upper: 60% vs 56.7%
  • Theewaterskloof: 14.9% vs 13.8%
  • Voëlvlei: 16.9% vs 14.6%
  • Wemmershoek: 50.6% vs 36.1%

It is of course vital that Capetonians continue to use water frugally so that the dams can fill up and the risk of #DayZero can be avoided for at least a couple of years. DM

Gallery

Please peer review 3 community comments before your comment can be posted

X

This article is free to read.

Sign up for free or sign in to continue reading.

Unlike our competitors, we don’t force you to pay to read the news but we do need your email address to make your experience better.


Nearly there! Create a password to finish signing up with us:

Please enter your password or get a sign in link if you’ve forgotten

Open Sesame! Thanks for signing up.

We would like our readers to start paying for Daily Maverick...

…but we are not going to force you to. Over 10 million users come to us each month for the news. We have not put it behind a paywall because the truth should not be a luxury.

Instead we ask our readers who can afford to contribute, even a small amount each month, to do so.

If you appreciate it and want to see us keep going then please consider contributing whatever you can.

Support Daily Maverick→
Payment options

Become a Maverick Insider

This could have been a paywall

On another site this would have been a paywall. Maverick Insider keeps our content free for all.

Become an Insider

Every seed of hope will one day sprout.

South African citizens throughout the country are standing up for our human rights. Stay informed, connected and inspired by our weekly FREE Maverick Citizen newsletter.