Cape Town - Dams feeding Cape Town are currently 53% full - 28 percentage points higher than last year, when the drought was at its worst.
The average dam levels in the Western Cape has reached an average level of 47.2%, a 24 percentage point increase in dam capacity compared to last year.
The dams feeding the City of Cape Town are even better off at 53% (2017: 25%)
Anton Bredell, Local Government, Environmental Affairs and Development Planning MEC, said the good rains is showing an incredible impact.
“Only weeks ago Clanwilliam dam was below 10%. The dam, one of the biggest in the province is full and the sluices were opened over the past weekend. An incredible turnaround.”
He has however cautioned that the province is not out of the woods yet.
“A lot of rain has helped replenish groundwater but we need to allow the system to recover as much as possible ahead of the summer season. In addition, some areas remain stressed, particularly the Karoo region where the rainfall has not provided adequate relief yet.”
The Theewaterskloof dam is 38.5% full this week; Voëlvlei dam is 52% full; Bergriver Dam 83% full; and the Clanwilliam Dam is 98.2% full.
Bredell said the cold weather and good snowfall in many mountain ranges are also a good sign as the melting snow and thawing in the coming months will further assist in replenishing water sources.
“We want to continue to urge the public to save water and to ensure that the changes we have seen in water usage becomes permanent changes. This drought we have tackled will not be the last drought we will see moving forward. Long term behaviour change, better resource management and a growing resilience to these shocks are going to be vital moving forward,” Bredell said.
Rashid Khan, Western Cape head of the department of water and sanitation, said the need for water savings however remains.
“The way forward in the face of climate change would be establishing alternative water sources as the primary source and the rainfall (regarded as surface water where it becomes available) as the secondary option especially so when the climate change is taken into consideration,” he said.
Khan said the water restrictions will remain in force until dams levels reach more than 85% as a collective average of the dams in the Western Cape.
“It is not the intention of this department to curtail water users at household sphere of governance to 50 litres of water per person per day. The national department allows the local government (municipalities) to manage its water use such that its local commercial, industrial and domestic users utilise water accordingly. It is therefore the prerogative of a municipality to set and manage its water use according to the water security prevailing at the time (such as after this rainfall event),” he said.
Khan said the collective effort as government would be to guard against complacency.
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