Why Cape Town Is Running Out of Water, and Who’s Next
The South African city plans to shut off the taps to 4 million people. But it's just one of many cities around the world facing a future with too little water.
By Craig Welch
PUBLISHED MARCH 5, 2018
By summer, four million people in the city of Cape Town—one of Africa's most affluent metropolises—may have to stand in line surrounded by armed guards to collect rations of the region's most precious commodity: drinking water.
Population growth and a record drought, perhaps exacerbated by climate change, is sparking one of the world's most dramatic urban water crises, as South African leaders warn that residents are increasingly likely to face "Day Zero." That's the day, previously projected for mid-April but now mid-July, when the city says it will be forced to shut off taps to homes and businesses because reservoirs have gotten perilously low—a possibility officials now consider almost inevitable.
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OTHER WORLD CITIES AT RISK
Already, droughts in recent years have helped spark famine and unrest in rural nations around the Arabian Sea, from Iran to Somalia. But water crises are also threatening massive cities around the world.
Already, many of the 21 million residents of Mexico City only have running water part of the day, while one in five get just a few hours from their taps a week. Several major cities in India don't have enough. Water managers in Melbourne, Australia, reported last summer that they could run out of water in little more than a decade. Jakarta is running so dry that the city is sinking faster than seas are rising, as residents suck up groundwater from below the surface.
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https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/02/cape-town-running-out-of-water-drought-taps-shutoff-other-cities/
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