The City of Cape Town has seen a significant decrease in its water usage, with “Day Zero” officially being pushed back to 11 May 2018.<\/p>\n
The significant drop-off was due to decreased usage in the agriculture sector,\u00a0according to the City’s official water dashboard.<\/p>\n
Despite dam levels dropping by 0.8% (to 25.5%) for the week ending 5 February, there was a 14% increase (up to 55%) in the number of\u00a0residents using 87 litres or less per day.<\/p>\n
Should these statistics be maintained there is now an increased chance that the City may still have some water come the start of the “rainy-season”.<\/p>\n
\u201cIndications are that Day Zero will be pushed out, even quite substantially far out, due to the residents of Cape Town reducing water demand drastically,\u201d said<\/a><\/strong> Mmusi Maimane on Friday.<\/p>\n \u201cThe fact that water supply to agriculture has stopped does lessen the pressure on the rest of the network, but that does not automatically mean that all the water originally meant for agriculture will go to other consumers,\u201d added Sputnik Ratau, a spokesman for the department.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of that water is already in the system, and there are leaks and other factors that contribute to water loss. We need to keep overall consumption down for at least another two-and-a-half months or until the winter rains start,” said Ratau.<\/p>\n
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