A drought levy is being proposed for water scarce Cape Town. The levy is facing wide opposition and there are claims it’s punitive and punishes those trying to save water.
Women collecting water in Mali echo a common scene across Africa.
Reuters/Benoit Tessier
Developing a map of African countries’ water poverty levels offers a transparent analysis for policymakers, governments and organisations that deal with water issues.
Six major dams make up 99.6% of the volume of water in Cape Town’s water supply.
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The water crisis in South Africa’s Cape Town teaches us there’s more at play than just rainfall. Disasters like droughts means the issue must be seen from many different perspectives, like politics.
Some homes in Cape Town are now harvesting rainwater from their roofs.
Flickr/Inhabitat
Cape Town promised alternative water sources with the ongoing drought being declared a disaster. Its main strategy is water rationing but climate models are also being used.
A man sells bottled water in Lagos Nigeria, a country with abundant water resources but little to drink.
Reuters/Akintunde Akinleye
There is an increasing demand for water in cities like Cape Town. The current drought exacerbates this. But there are ways to use and save water sustainably.
Star Wars moisture ‘vaporators’.
Véronique Debord-Lazaro/Flickr
Stormwater harvesting offers an alternative water supply source. It’s almost entirely untapped in South Africa and could ensure improved water security across the country.
Water and agriculture is high on the agenda at this year’s climate talks.
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Jeremy Bird, International Water Management Institute
The current climate talks in Morocco are a golden opportunity for making strides on the adaptation of African agriculture. African countries need the tools necessary to do so.
Intelligent trade policies needed to counter uneven distribution of water resources.
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Intelligent trade policies can help limit the threats, including food security, that come with an uneven distribution of water resources across the globe.
We know many parts of the world suffer from water shortages, but how do we best measure scarcity?
globalwaterpartnership/flickr
Can we predict where in the world will be water-stressed? Using a more fine-tuned model, researchers find there is no global water crisis, just local ones.
Water footprints provide interesting information, but they should not be used as a tool for decision-making.
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Associate professor in the Department of Civil Engineering and interim Director of the Future Water research institute at the University of Cape Town, University of Cape Town
Associate Professor, Department of Environmental and Geographical Science and African Climate and Development Initiative Research Chair, University of Cape Town