Blog post 4: Cape Town water crisis - just another political game?

Around mid-2017 friends and family in Cape Town started talking about their fears of running out of water. By the end of the year my social media feeds were full of shared posts about water conservation. On the 1st of February 2018, the South African government increased Cape Town’s mandatory water restrictions, limiting water use to 50 litres/person/day (City of Cape Town 2018). Recommendations accompanying the restriction included only one toilet flush a day and one laundry load a week (CBC 2018). Additional water had to be bought (if you were lucky enough to find some) or collected from natural springs in the city (fig. 1). All of this was in an effort to avoid “Day Zero” – the day the city runs out of water. This post will explore whether this crisis was caused by poor environmental conditions or politics. 

Figure 1. Messages from my friend at the University of Cape Town who was experiencing the drought first hand.

So, who or what caused this crisis?

Drought?

Well let’s preface this blog post by pointing out that the Western Cape has been facing a severe drought since 2015 and possibly the driest in hundreds of years (Wolski 2018). Annual rainfall fell from 1,100mm in 2013 to 500mm in 2017 (Cotterill 2018). This resulted in the depletion of Cape Town’s rainfall-fed dams (fig. 2) which store and supply the city with water. So, clearly the drought lead to unfavourable water supply conditions but the magnitude and distribution of the impacts is not down to a lack of rainfall alone. 

Figure 2. Satellite images showing the depletion at Cape Town’s largest dam, Theewaterskloof. Source

Politicians?

Cape Town is situated in the Western Cape which is the only province governed by the Democratic Alliance (DA) as opposed to the ruling political party, the African National Congress (ANC). Consequently, political tension between different levels of government are especially heightened in this region. The management of water resources involves all levels of government (Enqvist and Ziervogel 2019): the everyday management of Cape Town’s supplies is the responsibility of the local government (the DA) but bulk water supply is allocated, regulated and controlled by the Department of Water and Sanitation (i.e. the ANC). The Department of Water and Sanitation blames the crisis on local government, accusing them of not reacting strongly enough to the rapid increase in population:  between 1995-2018, the population of Cape Town increased by 79% but dam storage (which remains the city’s primary water source) only increased by 15% (Bohatch 2017). However, local government insists inadequate funding and water allocation by national government made increasing water supplies impossible (Saunderson-Meyer 2018). Indeed, the City’s early request for drought relief funding was rejected by national government. The South African Water Caucus later disclosed this was likely due to debt, money mismanagement and corruption in the Water and Sanitation Department (Olivier 2017). So, although the drought lead to issues of water supply, the magnitude of the crisis could have been mitigated through alternative water projects and better management of water allocation…but political interests got in the way.

People queuing to collect water from a natural spring in Cape Town. Source

Apartheid legacy?

I’m now going to quickly mention how the apartheid legacy influenced the crisis as I think it is an important political aspect to consider. It influenced population densities and shaped infrastructure provision across the city which ultimately resulted in the crisis being felt more in certain areas. The apartheid segregated people by race, expelling those considered “black” and “coloured” to townships and informal settlements whilst prioritising public services, including water provision, to “white” communities (Enqvist and Ziervogel 2019). Despite the apartheid being legally abolished in 1994, the social and economic inequalities it created still remain. Townships generally have inferior water infrastructure (Smith and Hanson 2003) and are often the first areas to feel the effects of water shortages. For example, the lowering of water pressures, in response to the drought lead to many communal taps in townships running dry (Cheslow 2018). As Elias from the Philippi township put it “Rich people can survive the drought because they can buy water” to meet their demands (Cotterill 2018). Hence the impacts of the Cape Town water crisis disproportionately affected those with lower incomes (Dawson 2018). For more details on this topic I highly recommend you check out this previous blog post by another student and this academic paper.

Conclusion

So, was the crisis was caused by poor environmental conditions or politics? Although the drought obviously plays a part in limiting water supply, the magnitude of the crisis was largely determined by political struggles between authorities and poor management decisions by the Department of Water and Sanitation. Additionally, the apartheid legacy lead to uneven impacts across the city: some people experienced water restrictions whilst others experienced no water. Luckily for those involved, sufficient rain in late 2018 lead to dam replenishment and Day Zero was averted. However, the crisis highlighted how politics can intensify water scarcity and furthers Watkins theory (2006) that inequality is central to water crises.