Cape Town is almost out of water. Could Australian cities suffer the same fate?

The world is watching the unfolding Cape Town water crisis with horror. On “Day Zero”, now predicted to be just ten weeks away, engineers will turn off the water supply. The South African city’s four million residents will have to queue at one of 200 water collection points.

With water storages running low, residents of Cape
Town get drinking water in the early morning from a
mountain spring collection point.

Cape Town is the first major city to face such an extreme water crisis. There are so many unanswered questions. How will the sick or elderly people cope? How will people without a car collect their 25-litre daily ration? Pity those collecting water for a big family.

The crisis is caused by a combination of factors. First of all, Cape Town has a very dry climate with annual rainfall of 515mm. Since 2015, it has been in a drought estimated to be a one-in-300-year event.

Read the piece on The Conversation by a Senior Lecturer in Environmental Science, Western Sydney University,  Ian Wright - “Cape Town is almost out of water. Could Australian cities suffer the same fate?”