How São Paulo survived drought
As Cape Town faces Day Zero we look at how another city coped with its drought crisis
IT’S a statement that’s been making headlines across the globe for weeks: Cape Town could be the first major city in the world to run out of water. Western Cape premier Helen Zille sent already panicked Mother City residents stockpiling water with new vigour when she declared in an article on Daily Maverick, “As things stand, the challenge exceeds anything a major city has had to face anywhere in the world since World War 2 or 9/11.” And yet . . . that’s not quite true. Just two years ago Brazilian megacity São Paulo was in dire straits.
The biggest city in the Western hemisphere was facing its greatest water crisis in more than 80 years – thanks to a devastating drought that plagued Brazil from 2014, hitting the southeast of the South American country hardest.
“We were on the brink,” is how Jerson Kelman, president of São Paulo’s state water facility (Sabesp), put it.
“I don’t know what would’ve happened if we’d lost control of the water supply for 22 million people.”
HOW BAD WAS IT?
Really, really bad. The crisis was something residents in a country that’s been referred to as “the Saudi Arabia of water” could never have anticipated. Brazil accounts for 12 to 16% of the world’s fresh water, more than any other country on Earth.
But unfortunately for Paulistanos, as the city’s residents are called, this abundant water is in the Amazon River and rainforests in the north.
And because authorities were so woefully unprepared for the disaster, proper infrastructure wasn’t in place.
The megalitres of fresh water on the city’s doorstep couldn’t be harnessed.
Rain generally buckets down in Brazil in November but a dry 2014/15 season meant the dams and reservoirs that serve several cities weren’t replenished.
By early February 2015 Cantareira, the main reservoir system supplying São Paulo, was at only 6% of its capacity. Large parts of the surface of the reservoirs were caked with dried mud.
Officials predicted taps would run dry before the rains came. In a last-ditch attempt to avoid disaster, Sabesp reduced water pressure, started imposing tariffs on those who used too much water and even began daily 12-hour water shut-offs.
Residents who could afford it started to hoard water, building water tanks and buying water wherever they could get their hands on it.
Rosangela Oliveira, manager of a container store in São Paulo, said her stock of water vessels sold out faster than she could order more.
“We were having trouble finding the containers even at the factory,” she told Al Jazeera TV channel. “For almost a month we didn’t have anything for the customers.”
Her customers scrambled to buy water elsewhere – but like in South Africa, the majority of people in this developing country are poor and couldn’t afford it.
DESPERATE TIMES
The indigenous Guarani community, who live in the outlying village of Tekoa Itakupe, complained that the little water they did have was a murky, milky white.
“The children went thirsty,” Sonia Aramirim, a Guarani teacher, told news magazine Time.
“Many of them would get dehydrated. Some women had urinary problems from not drinking enough water.”
Businesses, which use 30% of São Paulo’s water, were forced to turn to private wells, recycling water and capturing every drop of whatever rainwater there
was to avoid relying on the network, according to Anicia Pio, head of São Paulo state industry association Fiesp’s environmental department. Production in the country’s already ailing economy was hit hard. Chemical firm Rhodia was forced to shut down some factories in 2014 and the world’s largest beef producer, JBS, let 800 workers go.
HOW SÃO PAULO COPED
In a nutshell, the World Bank came to the city’s rescue – and by the time it stepped in, São Paulo’s water supply was at about 5%.
“There was only enough water for 40 days,” Kelman recalls. “In that situation tension was high. It was essential we find new water sources to ensure minimum sustainability of the water supply.”
With the World Bank money São Paulo was able to link up dams and reservoirs using canals and pipelines.
The Billings Reservoir, the Rio Pequeno and the Rio Grande were linked by pipelines to a giant water-treatment station.
The loan also helped to provide infrastructure to increase the capacity of the Guarapiranga reservoir system from about 14m3 (14 000 litres) a second to 16m3.
“This enabled us to use water from Guarapiranga, which still had water stock, to supply the population.” Then mercifully, it rained. Hard. Sabesp no longer has to rely on muddy technical reserves to supply more than 20 million people.
In early 2016 the city went from drought-stricken to flooded. In February 100mm of rain fell in just more than an hour, turning parched streets into rivers.
By the end of the month the Cantareira system, which provides water for nearly six million people, rose above pump level for the first time in a year.
IS EVERYTHING OKAY NOW?
The short answer: no.
Droughts are more likely because of climate change, pollution and deforestation of Brazil’s Atlantic Forest and the Amazon rainforests, experts warn.
“We need to prepare ourselves for more drastic situations,” says Samuel Barrêto, manager of water strategy at the non-profit The Nature Conservancy in São Paulo.
“We must learn to use water in a more rational, intelligent way.”
But Sabesp insists it’ll be prepared next time.
“The assumption is it could happen again and more often,” Kelman says. “Those of us who are responsible for the population have to be conservative. We should strive for the best but be prepared for the worst.” S