For a long time, the water supply in Cape Town depended mostly on Table Mountain’s rivers, including the Platteklip, Disa, and Hout Bay rivers. Over centuries, as the population of Cape Town grew, these rivers were exploited to provide water to the city.
The Dutch East India Company established an outpost in Cape Town in 1652 to provide fresh supplies for the company’s ships en route to the East. Early water sources included mountain streams and springs.
In 1764, canals were dug in the city to be used for water supply but also as drains and garbage tips. The canals included Buitengracht, Kaisersgracht and Heerengracht. These canals were later filled in to become roads, which retained the canal names as street names. In the 1820s, the British turned to the Platteklip Stream on Table Mountain for the city’s main water source. Hand pumps were installed in the city. The city’s ecological footprint was still small, home to about 30 000 people in 1865.But by 1849, water was scarce. The Platteklip stream, now completely exploited, could only provide up to ten litres a minute. Two reservoirs were built in town, which still exist today although they are not used today.
There was a sense among settlers that water flowing into the ocean was being wasted and had to be diverted for human consumption. This is a common misconception, Day said: ‘Water is never wasted, even if it isn’t used for humans.’ Cape Town will continue to “flip-flop” between flood and drought, Day said. Archive photo: Ashraf HendricksAll of the useable dam sites have now been used, said Day. Meanwhile, the population continues to increase massively. As of 2023, there are nearly five million people in the City, with about 80 000 people entering the City every year.
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