Cape Town’s window to avoid water restrictions is narrowing, with the City’s dam levels sitting at just over 55% – around 19% lower than this time last year.
While the city is not currently in a drought, officials warn that the next three months will be crucial in determining whether restrictions will be needed later this year. If current water usage trends continue and rainfall is average, dam storage could drop as low as 40% by May.
The City has activated an early drought caution phase, an early warning signal that reflects lower-than-expected dam levels and the need for careful water use, even though taps are running normally.
Daily water consumption remains concerningly high, spiking to 1 073 million litres this past Monday, with average per person consumption at around 178 litres per person per day. The City’s target is to remain below 975 million litres per day.
“Team Cape Town, we still have a window to change the outcome of this winter, but that window is closing. If we use water wisely now, we can protect the system and avoid tough restrictions later. If we wait until the dams are much lower, our options become limited and the measures we need to introduce become far more disruptive,” said Councillor Zahid Badroodien, mayoral committee member for water and sanitation.
Badroodien emphasised that the city’s approach is to act early based on risk rather than wait for crisis conditions.
“Water restrictions are not a punishment. They are a tool to protect supply when risk becomes too high to ignore. The projections show that early, moderate demand management now can help avoid more severe restrictions later, when there is far less room to manoeuvre,” he said.
Infrastructure investments
Since the 2017 drought, the City has continued investing in water conservation measures. Between January 2019 and December 2025, 367 km of water pipes were replaced city-wide.
In the 2024/25 financial year, the City identified 793 leaks after inspecting 5 562 km of the network, equating to a saving of nearly 5,8 million litres of water a day. Daily operations teams attended to 22 693 leaks city-wide.
Since September 2020, 31 080 properties have been inspected in response to compliance submissions required under the City’s water by-laws.
The clearing of alien invasive plant species is saving more than 51 million litres of water a day, while completed groundwater schemes at the Table Mountain Group Aquifers Steenbras Phase 1 are delivering about two million litres of water a day.
The City is also using approximately 280 pressure management zones to reduce pipe bursts, extend infrastructure lifespan and rapidly detect abnormal water losses.
Long-term plans
Bardroodien further stated that Cape Town is progressing with strategic plans to add 300 million litres a day to its water supply from 2031.
Groundwater schemes form a key part of this diversified supply, aiming to deliver more than 100 million litres of water per day once fully implemented. The projects span three aquifer systems – Cape Flats, Atlantis and Table Mountain Group Aquifers – with 15 production boreholes drilled at Table Mountain Group Aquifers, 66 at Cape Flats Aquifer and 47 at the Atlantis Aquifer.
Water reuse aims to produce 70 to 100 million litres a day from purified recycled wastewater, while desalination aims to convert seawater into 50 to 70 million litres of drinkable water a day.
The City is forging ahead with plans to begin procurement for the Faure New Water Scheme for water reuse and the Paarden Eiland Desalination Plant using a public-private partnership model.
Clearing alien invasive plants is delivering about 18,77 billion litres of water a year to the city’s supply.
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