Imagine, going to get a drink of water and nothing coming out of the tap? To most living in a first world country, this is unheard of but to many around the world not having enough clean water is a daily struggle.

The beautiful South African city, Cape Town, is approaching what seems like a doomsday scenario known as “Day Zero”, which is the day when the taps are going to run dry until the rain arrives. On April 12th, the city officials were planning on shutting off the water supply to four million people, in order to save water from running out completely. Many experts have stated this won’t be uncommon to see in the future due to global warming.

This has been a growing dilemma for  Cape Town, who has been in a drought for the last three years. In the past, their rainy season runs from May to August. In 2017, 2016 and 2015, South Africans got less than half of the median rainfall.  The loss of water has most clearly been seen in the dam, Theewaterskloof, which only holds twelve percent of the water it used too. It’s been reported that the daily usage of water must be decreased to 450 million liters compared to 547 million liters currently being used to avoid “Day Zero”.  The population of Cape Town had increased 79 percent but the water storage has only increased by fifteen percent .

Tension has increased between the residents as the struggle to save water continues. Sadly, everyday millions of people are forced to wait on line for their daily quota of water at the 200 different emergency water locations stationed throughout the city. They are limited to using three gallons a day. Even taking a ten minute shower would be exceed their water limit. Instead, they are recommended to take 90 second showers. The city’s limitations are starting to test the patience of the community by only allowing them to flush their toilet once per day and strongly encourage them  to reuse towels more then twice. To put the situation into perspective of how devastating this disaster is, in the States, citizens use 80 to 100 gallons per day. Having access to (what seems like) an unlimited amount of water is a simple luxury that get overlooked by the public.

Luckily, due to the nonstop efforts made by the South African tenants the estimated date has been pushed back to August 24th. Cape Town’s Deputy Mayor, Alderman Ian Neilson, released the statement claiming “While we are feeling more confident of avoiding Day Zero this year, we cannot predict the volume of rainfall still to come..we are still in danger of reaching Day Zero early next year…ensure that the behavioral shift we have undergone in the past months becomes second nature.”  This means the method the residents adapted to avoid this disaster are now becoming apart of their lifestyles

Water crises are an emerging issue for many other world cities and climate change is to blame. Also, Mexico City is currently struggling with a water disaster. Residents only have access to running water for part of the day  before its turned off and most water is contaminated by runoffs and sewers. Also, during 2015 in Sao Paulo, Brazil the water reserves were so drained the pipes drew mud and dirt. Even though these are just two places, all throughout the world, “1.1 billion people worldwide lack access to water, and a total of 2.7 billion find water scarce for at least one month of the year” according to World Wild Life. Everyone should be doing anything and everything they are capable of doing to save water and try to ensure something like this won’t happen to your city.