How Cape Town Was Saved From Running Out Of Water

This spring, Cape Town narrowly avoided becoming the first major metropolis to run out of water. Three consecutive years of drought left South Africa’s second largest city with near-empty water reserves, a problem increasingly common around the world. 

The city responded by enforcing strict water use policies and announcing “Day Zero,” the projected moment when water levels would fall so low that the city would simply turn off the taps.

This apocalyptic notion prompted water stockpiling and panic, caused a drop in tourism bookings, and raised the spectre of civil unrest. It also worked.

Water use fell. Not as much as needed, but enough to push Day Zero from as early as April 12, 2018 to 2019.

“It was the most talked about thing in Cape Town for months when it needed to be,” says Priya Reddy, the city’s communication director. “It was not a pretty solution, but it was not a pretty problem.”

A fascinating case study of aggressive citywide messaging, the Day Zero campaign is successfully reducing water consumption, but risks focusing too much attention on a doomsday date rather than the ongoing need to conserve and recycle water. With the timeline pushed out, Cape Town is now trying to keep residents from slipping back into old patterns of water consumption.