Cape Town - Cape Town's deputy mayor Ian Neilson says the Mother City has managed to cut its collective water consumption to 522 million litres.
And while the 43 million litre reduction is welcomed, it's still some way off from the target of 450 million litres of collective daily usage.
"The City of Cape Town thanks its water users for getting back on track as we push to get down to the required 450 million litres of collective daily water usage, or 50 litres per person per day," Neilson said ion a statement. "We need to achieve this target in order to stretch the available water supplies through the rest of the year.
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"The more water we use, the faster our dam levels decline. In the past week, dam levels have fallen by 0.5% to 22.2% despite the rain that was received, primarily on 24 March 2018.
"Although the winter months will likely bring more rain, we cannot estimate how much rain we will have or count on it having a significant impact on our dam levels," he said.
The City appears to have adopted the slogan: 50 litres a day keeps Day Zero away.
"The City has also been expanding its roll-out of pressure testing with the purpose of using the results to implement more automated pressure zones across the metro in an effort to help reduce water usage to 50 litres per person per day. By creating automated pressure zones, the City is able to adjust water pressure remotely and work more efficiently as it implements pressure management. This technology reduces the pressure of the flow of water and thus helps to reduce water usage.
"We have recently successfully tested areas including the Cape Town CBD, Green Point, Paarden Eiland, Woodstock, Salt River, Epping, Delft, Brooklyn and Dunoon. Testing is happening across the metro," Neilson said.
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