Editing Cape Town (section)

==== Water crisis of 2017 to 2018 ====
{{Main|Cape Town water crisis}}
[[File:Water Crisis.jpg|thumb|upright|Water crisis warning in Cape Town in 2018]]
The Cape Town water crisis of 2017 to 2018 was a period of severe water shortage in the [[Western Cape]] region, most notably affecting the [[City of Cape Town]]. While dam water levels had been declining since 2015, the Cape Town water crisis peaked during mid-2017 to mid-2018 when water levels hovered between 15 and 30 percent of total dam capacity.

In late 2017, there were first mentions of plans for "Day Zero", a shorthand reference for the day when the water level of the major dams supplying the city could fall below 13.5 percent.<ref name="USA today" /><ref name="Globe and Mail" /><ref name="Poplak 2018" /> "Day Zero" would mark the start of Level 7 water restrictions, when municipal water supplies would be largely switched off and it was envisioned that residents could have to queue for their daily ration of water. If this had occurred, it would have made the City of Cape Town the first major city in the world to run out of water.<ref name="Booysen et al 2019" /><ref name="Booysen et al 2019a" />

The city of Cape Town implemented significant water restrictions in a bid to curb water usage, and succeeded in reducing its daily water usage by more than half to around 500 million litres (130,000,000 US gal) per day in March 2018.<ref name="Narrandes 2018" /> The fall in water usage led the city to postpone its estimate for "Day Zero", and strong rains starting in June 2018 led to dam levels recovering.<ref name="Myburgh 2018" />

In September 2018, with dam levels close to 70 percent, the city began easing water restrictions, indicating that the worst of the water crisis was over.<ref name="reduce-sep2018" /> Good rains in 2020 effectively broke the drought and resulting water shortage when dam levels reached 95 percent.<ref name="After drought" /> Concerns have been raised, however, that unsustainble demand and limited water supply could result in future drought events.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Day Zero still looms over Cape Town |url=https://climate.mit.edu/posts/day-zero-still-looms-over-cape-town |access-date=20 April 2023 |website=MIT Climate Portal |language=en}}</ref>