Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 23 January 2011
By: Jeremy Westgarth-Taylor – Founder of Water Rhapsody. Inventor of all the Water Rhapsody Systems.
While the fear of water restrictions work in favour of those of us who are involved in water conservation, it would be preferable for all of us to have smoothed restrictions rather than an all or nothing scenario. All of us mean the population at large, the municipality, the Department of Environmental Affairs as well as Water Rhapsody. Please let me explain…
Although the upper Steenbras is almost full the majority of this water is stored for electricity power generation
Cycle of drought
Six, seven years or perhaps even eight years may elapse between one and the next season of drought. These years between drought cycles are winter months in Cape Town of higher than average rainfall, and the reverse in the northern regions of South Africa where we get summer rains. During these years of higher than average rainfall, all thought of the fact that we live in a water poor region of the world, is forgotten. Forgotten is the notion of drought by the bureaucrats and politicians that run our city. Drought is a long forgotten figment in the memory of the population at large as well. Every drought season, virtually a whole new generation needs to be re-educated in our need to use less water, and how to use less of the precious stuff. We should not forget what was written in biblical times that we have seven years of drought and seven years of plenty. While some areas north of Cape Town are experiencing floods of the magnitude seen but forgotten, the floods normally coincide with drought in the Western Cape.
During the years of drought in the Western Cape from 2000 to 2004, Capetonians had restrictions and increases in water tariffs imposed the like of which we hadn’t seen before. The city even appointed some officers to police water use, which officers disappeared into the woodwork (redeployed), and after higher than average rainfall fell in 2005 all restrictions were lifted with the exception of daily irrigation times(no watering between the times of ten till four 0’clock). Laughable though it is, this is the only water restriction left, and no police to check on this. It would be silly too to deploy a police force to check up whether or not you were watering your garden a 10.30 in the morning! Continue reading Does it take a genius to predict drought?
