The mayor described this as that it means a new connection with water. After seven months later, first capetown hasn't run out of water just yet. But as of September 3rd the hundred-liter limit has been dropped to 87 liters(that's pretty good). The mayor described the city's new normal as one of permanent drought.
Second: what's is going on in Cape town is pretty much coming to many other cities and countries in the world. As of the food and agriculture organization of the united nations, excluding countries that we don't have data for, less than five percent of the world's population is living in a country that has more water today than it did 20 years ago. Everyone else is living in a country that has very less water today. And nearly none out of three are living in a country that is facing a water crisis.
So will be sharing three lessons for from water-poor countries and how they survived and even thrived despite their water crisis.
1. Inform People how much water, they really have
In order to solve a problem, we need to acknowledge that we have one. And when it comes to water, people can easily turn a blind eye, pretending that since water is coming out of tap now, everything will be fine forever. But some smart, drought affected countries have adopted simple, innovate measures to make sure their citizens, their communities and their companies know just how dry their countries are.
There is a electric bill board on the freeway in capetown that indicates how much water the city had left. This is an idea they may well have taken from Australia when it faced one of the worst droughts of the country's history from 1997 to 2009. Water levels in Melbourne dropped to a very low volume of almost 26 percent.
But the city didn't yell at people. It didn't request with them not to use water. They used electronic bill boards to flash available levels of water to all citizens across the city. They were honestly telling people how much water is left, and letting them take control for themselves. By the end of the drought, this created such a sense of community. Nearly one out of three citizens in Melbourne had invested in installing rain wte holding tanks for their own households.
Actions that citizens of the cities took, didn't stop at installing those tanks. With help from the city, they were able to do something even more useful and impactful.
2. Give power to people to save water
Melbourne wanted people to use less water in their homes. And one way to do that is to spend less amount of time in the shower. However, interviews disclosed that some people, women in particular, weren't keen on saving water that way. Some of them legitimatelly said, '' The shower is not just to clean up.
So, the city started providing water efficient showerheads for free. And then, now some people compained that the showerheads looked ugly or didn't suit their bathrooms. So you can tell than. " The showerhead team" created a small water-flow regulator that can be fitted into existing showerheads.
Love to see how the team didn't give up and instead came up with a simple unique solution to empower people to save water. Within a span of 4 years, more than 460,000 shower heads were replaced. When the small regulator was introduced, more than 1 lakh orders of that were done.
Melbourned succeeded in reducing water demand per capita by 50 percent. In the United Arab Emirates, the second most water scant country in the world, officials created what they called the "Business Heroes Toolkit" in 2010. The aim was to motivate empower businesses to redue water and energy consumption. The toolkit practically taught companies how to calculate their existing water. Usage levels and consisted of tips to help them reduce those levels and it worked.
3. Looked below the surface
Water saving can come from unexpected places. Singapore is the eight most water most water-scarce country in the world. It depends on imported water for almost 60 percent of its water required. It's also a very small island. It require to make use of as much space as possible to catch rainfall. So, in the year 2008, they constructed the Marina Barrage. It's the first ever urban water lake built in the center of the city state.
It's the biggest water catchment in the country almost. One-sixth the size of singapore. What's so amazing about the marina barrage is that it has been built to make the maximum use of its largest size and its unexpected yet important location. It gives three valuable benefits to the country. It have boosted singapore's water supply by 10 percent, it protects low areas around it from flood.
Because of its connections to the sea and as you can see, it acts as a beautiful lifestyle attraction, hosting several events from art exhibitions to music festivals, attracting joggers, bikers, tourists all around that area.
Note: All the ideas addressed in the article is taken from Lana Mazareh's Ted talk speech.
About Me
Umang is a student of geography pursuing bachelor's in geography who enjoys indulging his passion including reading geography books and writing geography articles. My goal is to make every post valuable and something I'd want to read. Its mostly a Educational blog, meant to inspire. You can find my videos on youtube (there's a link in the upper right to jump to them) but posts are almost about geography .Other than writing blog on geography i also do illustration on Instagram. Enjoy Umang
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