National water levels decline slightly despite downpours in Western Cape
The Department of Water and Sanitation’s weekly status of reservoirs illustrates that the country’s water levels have decreased marginally when compared to the same period last week. This is despite heavy downpours experienced in some parts of the country such as Western Cape.
This week, the overall storage capacity of the country’s water level sits at 95.0%, a slight drop from last week’s 95.2%, and a tiny improvement from last year’s 93.3%.
The majority of the country’s Water Supply Systems have recorded downward movements in water levels week on week with the exception of systems such as Cape Town and Algoa which have moved up from 92.1% to 95.6% and 23.6% to 25.8% respectively.
Four Water Supply Systems remain on the same levels as that of last week, they are; Crocodile East at 100.2%, Klipplaat 100.4%, Umhlathuze 100.2% and Orange at 99.5%.
The Integrated Vaal River System (IVRS) which supplies a number of provinces dropped further from 99.3% to 98.4%, Umgeni in KwaZulu-Natal has declined slightly from 97.5% to 97.1%, Bloemfontein dropped from 99.2% to 98.9%, Butterworth shrunk from 100.0% to 99.4%, Amathole recorded a minor decline from 101.2% to 101.1%.
Continuing on the declining movement is Polokwane Water Supply System which decreased from 101.1% to 100.4%, Luvuvhu in the far north of Limpopo diminished faintly from 100.5% to 100.1%, and lastly on the downward movement side is the Crocodile West lowering from 100.2% to 100.0%.
The overall provincial water storage indicates that six (06) provinces have recorded downwards movements in water levels namely, KwaZulu-Natal slightly dropped from 90.9% to 90.8%, Limpopo from 88.5% to 88.2%, Mpumalanga from 98.6% to 98.1%, Northern Cape 92.8% to 91.0%, North West dropped from 90.2% to 89.8% and Free State also decreased from 99.7% to 99.2%.
On the improvement segment is Western Cape from 81.5% to 85.0%. Gauteng is up from 98.0% to 99.2%, and Eastern Cape has also expanded slightly from 78.6% to 78.7%.
In as far as major dams in the country are concerned, Vaal Dam which is part of the IVRS has recorded a decrease with the slightest of margins, this week it has declined to 93.8% from last week’s 94.6%, Bloemhof which also part of IVRS has slightly decreased from 107.8% to 105.0%, Gariep Dam which is part of Orange River Water Supply System has recorded an increment from 99.3% to 99.6%, Vanderkloof Dam moved down slightly from 99.8 to 99.4%.
The Department continues to call on water users to utilise the available water sparingly since we are in the middle of a dry winter season where rainfall is minimal.
For more information, contact:
Andile Tshona
Acting Spokesperson for the Department of Water and Sanitation
Cell: 073 566 3345
