Cape Town water consumption drops by 43 million litres

Capetonians have managed to get water usage down to 522 million litres per day over the past week - 43 million litres less than the previous week's water usage.

The City of Cape Town still requires Capetonians to reduce collective usage to 450 million litres per day or 50l per person per day.

"We need to achieve this target in order to stretch the available water supplies through the rest of the year," said Deputy Mayor Ian Neilson.

"The more water we use, the faster our dam levels decline. In the past week, dam levels have fallen by 0.5% to 22.2%, despite the rain that was received, primarily on March 24."

SPECIAL REPORT: Water Crisis

The City is still planning to implement several water-saving measures because it is difficult to estimate the amount of rainfall Cape Town will receive in winter.

Automated pressure zones

"Water management devices continue to be installed on the connections of high water users and teams are working around the clock to detect and repair leaks," said Neilson.

"Level 6B water restrictions remain in place, and consumers are receiving bills based on Level 6 tariffs. This means that the more water that residents use, the more they will pay."

The City has also been expanding its roll-out of pressure testing, with the purpose of using the results to implement more automated pressure zones across the metro in an effort to help reduce water usage to 50l per person per day.

By creating automated pressure zones, the City is able to adjust water pressure remotely and work more efficiently as it implements pressure management.

This technology reduces the pressure of the flow of water and thus helps to reduce water usage.

Testing is taking place across the metro and recently-tested areas include the Cape Town CBD, Green Point, Paarden Eiland, Woodstock, Salt River, Epping, Delft, Brooklyn and Dunoon.

KEEP UPDATED on the latest news by subscribing to our FREE newsletter.

- FOLLOW News24 on Twitter