MAKING CITIES WATER-WISE AND CLIMATE-RESILIENT — LESSONS AND EXPERIENCE FROM THE CAPE TOWN DROUGHT

Abstract

Half of humanity now lives in cities and the net inflow of population into cities will continue. Among all challenges faced by cities, the provisioning for water and sanitation is probably the most pressing one. From 2017 to 2018, the city of Cape Town in South Africa frequently made itself media headlines around the world, in many languages, for its severe water shortage due to consecutive years of drought that later resulted in a water crisis. Fortunately, the potential “Day Zero” when the city would run out of water, did not arrive. However, the crisis exposed a lack of resilience in the city’s water supply system in the face of ongoing climate change and a governance gap for climate adaptation. Many cities, especially those in the Global South, can learn from Cape Town’s experience and lessons on how to enhance governance to become more climate-resilient. Mark New and Gina Ziervogel, the interviewees, have been devoting themselves to studying about the Cape Town drought, and working on establishing the Cape Town Drought Response Learning Initiative. In this article, they analyzed the influence of climate change on Cape Town drought and the water supply system, and suggested effective methods to address and prevent the drought and water shortage. Ziervogel briefly described her adaptive and water-sensitive city framework while both of them revealed the role of Cape Town Drought Response Learning Initiative in making Cape Town more resilient.

Keywords

Cape Town; Drought; Climate Change; Water Supply; Resilience

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

2019 Higher Education Press