Growing concerns over an intense period of drought crystallised when Cape Town announced plans for ‘Day Zero’. The 12th April 2018 would mark the projected date when the capacity of local dams would fall to just 13.5%, preventing households and businesses from direct access to freshwater supplies. This doomsday rhetoric was successful, with radical reductions in consumption pushing back the seemingly inevitable. Although ‘Day Zero’ never materialised, municipal rationing had severe consequences on the city’s people, industry and economy.

There is no doubt that Cape Town’s arid climate can expose them to another Day Zero scenario in the future. Access to freshwater is entirely reliant on rainfall stored in dams: a freshwater resource which lacks resilience in the face of drought. Between 2015 and 2017, Cape Town suffered from significantly below average precipitation, raising serious concerns over the city’s water security. However, such meteorological reductionism fails to acknowledge the underlying political forces at play. This blog will uncover how the city’s freshwater scarcity has perennially masked a poor governance structure, issues of equitable access and environmental injustices. 

Cape Town’s governance issues are rooted in a chaotic political context. Unlike the rest of South Africa, the city is governed by the state’s opposition party: the Democratic Alliance (DA).This left Cape Town politically isolated, as the provision of freshwater is centralised by the state, who repeatedly neglected concerns raised by the DA. The allocation of freshwater is riddled with vested interests, as irrigating vineyards is often prioritised over the needs of its citizens (Roberts 2018). Even in times of crisis, maintaining the growth of an economically influential sector is afforded at the expense of people’s access to what most consider a basic human right. Households were subjected to just 50l per person per day (visualised below in Figure 2) from communal taps, a harrowing reality for the white privilege of Cape Town. So, was this a crisis for the many or the few?

Well, the financially elite were not put off by fines and their means to drill for private freshwater supplies left the “borehole bourgeoisie” largely unaffected. At the opposite end of the spectrum, the urban poor, predominantly concentrated in nonwhite Townships already had limited access. In fact, before the drought, those populating the city’s informal settlements were surviving off 40l per person per day, 20% less than the restrictions imposed in 2018. Day Zero was therefore a ‘middle class’ crisis, which begs the question, why is the everyday struggle of Cape Town’s Townships not being treated in the same light? 

Uneven access to freshwater stems from an era of Apartheid. Water and sanitation services were not effectively distributed to overcrowded Townships, repressed by a weak tax base, negligence and corruption (Enqvist and Ziervogel, 2019). Despite the abolishment of institutional racism, its legacy remains, as Cape Town’s water infrastructure was never connected to its informal settlements. Locals instead depend on communal taps, with women and children bearing the brunt of queuing for and carrying this water supply. Furthermore, Townships account for 20% of the city’s population, but only receive 5% of its freshwater resources.

Day Zero shone a light on the power asymmetries in Cape Town’s ecological landscape, with race and gender highlighted as systemic sources of inequality. The relationship between the nonwhite urban poor and their access to freshwater provides a useful insight into the ongoing environmental racism in Cape Town. This blog has unravelled the distributive injustice across the municipalities provision of freshwater, demonstrating how ecological services are inextricably linked to poverty and race. Although Day Zero has been postponed indefinitely for the middle class, it remains an everyday reality for Township communities. When will their deprivation be treated like a crisis and responded to as such? 

Unfortunately, the future looks bleak, with the privatisation of freshwater an ongoing threat to the economically less fortunate. Instead of commodifying freshwater, its access must be democratised by a more inclusive governance structure that recognises water as a human right. As local protestors summarised themselves, “water for all or the city must fall”. 

List of References:

Enqvist, J. P. and G. Ziervogel. (2019) “Water governance and justice in Cape Town: An overview”, WIREs Water, 6, 4, 1-15. 

Karklis, L., L. Tierney. and K. Soffen. (2018) “After years of drought, Cape Town is about to run out of water” (WWW) Washington, D.C.: The Washington Post (https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/world/capetown-water-shortage/; 26 January 2019). 

Roberts, L. (2018) “Politics, poverty, and climate change: stories from Cape Town’s ‘Day Zero’”(WWW) London: Evidence, Ideas, Change (https://www.odi.org/blogs/10616-politics-poverty-and-climate-change-stories-cape-town-s-day-zero; 26 January 2020). 

Watts, J. (2018) “Cape Town faces Day Zero: what happens when the city turns off the taps?” (WWW) London: The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/feb/03/day-zero-cape-town-turns-off-taps; 26 January 2020).