cape town drought case study

drought-response-learning-initiative.org

• About the Initiative
• About the Crisis
• Learning Outputs
• Full Interviews

The Cape Town crisis was a pivotal event in the history of the city that not only changed how Capetonians think of water but also led to the development and implementation of a new water strategy by the local government. The two short films below provide background information on the crisis, followed by links to resources on the event and the lessons learned from it.

In the short film below, CTDRLI co-lead Peter Willis sketches the background, with the key facts about Cape Town, its population, water supply system, rainfall patterns, dam levels, per-person and total water usage, and the 2017-2018 crisis.

In the presentation below, Dr Gisela Kaiser, City of Cape Town Executive Director for Informal Settlements, Water and Waste until May 2018, sets out how the water system works, how the city government responded to the drought, and the new water strategy approved by the City of Cape Town after the crisis.

• Links to additional resources:
• Sets out how Cape Town is incorporating lessons learnt during the crisis in a water strategy that includes a robust and adaptable plan to augment and diversify water supply
• Mike Muller. Lessons from Cape Town’s drought
• Mike Muller. Understanding Cape Town’s water crisis
• Three articles examining supply-side planning decision-making in the period leading up the crisis
• Briefing paper that gives an overview of the crisis and concludes with policy recommendations
• Brief overview of the crisis, concluding with lessons for water resilience
• Case study focused on how the crisis was averted, based on interviews conducted in Cape Town in November 2018
• Article that sets out the chronology of the drought and investigates the causes of the crisis
• Report based on interviews with officials and experts that sets out the history and concludes with lessons aimed at informing other municipalities in their attempts to adapt to drought and water insecurity
• Briefing note aimed at local governments, summarising the conclusions of the report above
• An interactive timeline of key events during the drought period, with links to documents and articles
• Overview of the crisis with links to further resources

• About the initiative
• About the crisis
• Learning outputs
• Full interviews

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