Resilience in water crisis
YESTERDAY, the Cape Argus carried an article by Nandi Mgwadlamba titled: “Wetlands are nature’s filter”s. The article reminded us that this year’s theme for World Wetland Day, which was on Friday, happened to be: “Keep Urban Wetlands”. Indeed!
As we are now in the throes of the worst drought in a 100 years, every resident is deeply anxious about the supply of water in the coming days. This short-term anxiety is not enough. The water crisis as not jut a problem for the present. In all likelihood water scarcity will be an enduring problem for a century.
Ten years hence we may bitterly regret the degradation of our wetlands and aquifer recharge areas. The article cautions that “the systemic degradation of wetlands reduces the ability of fresh-water ecosystems to effectively perform their natural function and recover from environmental shocks and stresses”.
This is a timely warning to all of us. In a sense we have already run out of time. We are playing catch up in panic.
Even so, the council regrettably reversed its decision of a year ago to have the water task team under the resilient officer. It has backtracked for no good reason and removed that delegation from him. The problem is not about water per se. It is about resilience, with water scarcity having significant importance. Why it did what it did has left me astonished.
By not identifying the problem correctly the council is going to take the blame for what is going to unfold. When the next election comes voters will want to know about policies on ecology, water and resilience.
We now know that experts are refusing to predict rain and weather patterns. The only thing we can be certain of is uncertainty. That is what we have to plan for by doing the fundamentals correctly and learning how to be resilient.
It will be very instructive to look at aerial photographs of Cape Town’s largest dam – Theewaterskloof – to see how it has shrunk in size over three years. It is going to take a really big cloudburst to fill it up again.
The growing crisis in Cape Town has been attributed to “poor management of the city’s water system”, and management’s over reliance on rainfall to supply our water. Looking ahead there is a warning of a further dimension to the crisis, namely, that fossil fuel emissions will continue to drive up global temperatures, and consequently, drought risk is expected to rise in places like south-western Africa and California.” We should take particular note of that.
Cities such as Paris, Copenhagen and Oxford have already announced bans on petrol and diesel cars. The Independent reported on October 14 that “Paris will ban all petrol- and diesel-fuelled cars by 2030, a decade ahead of France’s 2040 target”. Copenhagen on the other hand plans to ban diesel cars from 2019. Oxford is proposing to ban all non-electric vehicles from its centre from 2020. This would make central Oxford the world’s first zero-emissions zone.
Cape Town and California are two cities that have great cause to act proactively and pre-emptively. Yet there is no announcement on banning vehicles using petrol and diesel. With all the prodding from Cope, there is still no discussion on the transition to electric vehicles.
We really have to do a host of things to ensure Cape Town’s water supply and its continued existence. Desalination is only an ameliorative and expensive measure. Addressing ecological issues quickly and expertly must now be top priority.