As DAY ZERO looms for Cape Town, the blame game goes into overdrive, but blame won't solve the water woes.
For those who are not aware of what Day Zero entails, it is the day taps run dry for all but essential services such as hospitals in Cape Town. This specific day is recalculated all the time, but as of now is about mid April this year. When the taps run dry people will have to personally collect water at water collection points, and will be allocated 25 litres per person per day. As of 01/02/18, water restrictions have already been tightened to 50 litres water per person per day, but this can be abused, as water is still available in the taps. Unfortunately it is partly this abuse of scarce water resources which has resulted in the looming Day Zero. Another major contributing factor is one common to our country, and that is utter bureaucratic incompetence. Just this week I was listening to a story on the radio where a politician apparently blamed the Weather Service for not predicting the drought!
Beautiful drought wastelands, but wastelands none the less.
A Newcastle acquaintance, with whom I connected on facebook, works for the WWF. He was in Cape Town recently, and informally documented what he saw while he was there. He posted the photos on facebook to spread awareness, and kindly granted me permission to share them here on Steemit.
Even while suffering under one of the worst droughts in history, Cape Town and surrounds are still deceptively green. This is due to a combination of water efficient indigenous plants and ground water, which can't be used for residential purposes.
Astroturf and borehole water are used in this property.
Signs of a reality that is looming on a much larger scale.
What South Africa fails to realise is this is a problem that is going to affect us all at some stage, as we are not preserving our natural resources. A small town near where I live (and I am sixteen hours away from Cape Town) has already run dry in sections. I have a regular customer who said they had no choice but to sink numerous boreholes in his area, at a personal cost of about R50 000 ($4200) each. Several dams in my province are very worryingly low, despite recent torrential rainfall. Globally we have to appreciate what we have, and preserve what we have, because DAY ZERO looms for us all. And our children.
Please note!!! All photos in this article were taken by Angus Burns of the World Wildlife Fund, and were previously shared on facebook. I have been granted permission to share them here. A very recent article, also using one of these photos, can be read here https://www.bolanderlifestyle.co.za/news/day-zero-looms-large-13026272
All liquid proceeds from this article will be donated to the WWF.
@onetree
Water is becoming liquid gold! Not a pretty sight for future generations! There’ll be wars on water issue.
Yes there will. :(
Oh my gosh, I've talked to @themagus about the drought before, but when a date is put on it, that makes it even more scary. Is it as bad where you are?
At the moment we are experiencing torrential rainstorms, but despite that, there are concerns about certain dams in our province. I think water resources as a whole are becoming more scarce.
Am in love with your write up MA, will like to use this medium to appreciate you thanks a lot and God bless you
Thank you
So so sad - we can just keep on praying
...and save water where we can, no matter where we live.
I agree. Pity there is some people that just do not care, but if we all do something small to change the situation it will help
It is so sad to see the growing water scarcity in the world.
Sadly with world problems like this many charity's come with short term solutions which feels like the idiom we use in my country, which is Mopping the floor while keeping the tap running.
But this also seems like a unique chance to me for humanity and south africa to improve their technology on converting salt water into fresh water.
I think terraforming and making new forests has also been shown as a potential to combat droughts because it keeps the water in the enviroment, like Antonio Vicente did in Brazil.
Sadly people feel like undertakings like these are too expensive.
In my opinion money should not be problem when it comes to saving the world.
I just read an article on planned desalination plants for Cape Town, so your take on it is really positive. Maybe there is hope, or forced hope.
We live on water tanks and depend heavily on the rain or we need to buy water. After having lived in cities where water is just wasted, I no longer can ignore the value of water for us here even though we are surrounded by ocean. Even with the land to extend our garden, we first need to consider our water supply for the summer before doing so. It is a shame, that more awareness isn’t spread globally about the inequality of access to this most vital resource and the scarcity of it in our future which demands that we begin preserving it now.
Water is going to be one of the biggest issues facing us in the future.
I don’t often comment on the photos in the post, but the photos of wasteland fascinate me and attracted me to continue reading this particular post. It provides a sad reality but also a beautiful window into Cape Town....
I agree completely, that's why I shared the photos, although they weren't mine.
While thats a shame about the water their, some people just dont understand how good some of us have it,because i can just go to the sink and let the water run for hours on hours not saying i do that though, buy the way the greenery pictures look so peaceful. Thank you for sharing this story because it needs to be heard
Water is going to become an increasing concern for many around the world.
I understand that, thats why it dont waste it