Cape Town’s water crisis worsened by the rich, study finds | News24

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Wealthy households make up less than 14% of Cape Town’s population, but use more than half its domestic water, making their consumption a greater threat to sustainable water use than either climate change or population growth. | GroundUp_News

is the title of the study by Elisa Savelli, Maurizio Mazzoleni, Giuliano Di Baldassarre, Hannah Cloke, and Maria Rusca, published inThe authors are from Uppsala University in Sweden, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands, and the University of Reading and the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom.

The study argues that urban water crises are not just the result of drought, but also of social inequality. Wealthy urban households use drinking water for swimming pools and gardens while the socially, economically, and politically disadvantaged city residents are excluded from basic access to water.

Households in lower income and informal areas, however, made up just over 40% and 21% of the population respectively, but only used 27.3% of the city’s water.These"stark differences" in patterns of water consumption are"largely confirmed by literature from Cape Town and other cities," state the authors.

"Indeed, low-income users could not afford the revised tariff," they say, adding that often people living in overcrowded units where more than eight people shared a tap ended up being charged unaffordable water bills and having fines levied against them. Furthermore, after the drought, increased water tariffs became the new normal.

"By contrast, low-income areas do not have the resources to cope with tariff increases or to access private water wells."

 

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GroundUp_News The 14% pays for their water the other 86%want everything for free

GroundUp_News And parliamentarians don't get loadshed or pay anything towards services. Why knock those that pay and create the economy? Hacks writing drivel for a rag- again!

GroundUp_News You give people who are wealthy tax breaks and now want to shout and scream, did tax payer money not by solar and generators for all politicians houses. How are you helping the people in poverty when you help yourself first. Tsek ya ma se poes bra

GroundUp_News Who gives a shit as long as they're paying for it.

GroundUp_News It’s worsened by the influx of economic refugees fleeing ANC provinces where they made piss poor voting choices and are to useless to self correct!

GroundUp_News That is because the racist DA government replaced water meters in black and coloured areas, which restricted dailly water consumption to just 100 liters. Never touched white meters. Thank you racist DA your parent's the National Party would be proud.

GroundUp_News i hv a plan….. lets make everybody poor… then you dont hv to complain about the wealthy paying the way of the poor! then we are all equal!! whos fault is infrastructure failure? , u r a SOT!!!

GroundUp_News So people shouldn’t use the water they pay for? And also subsidising other water users in the process? Here’s an idea, how about the “rich” just commit mass suicide? Would that make the lefty journalists in this country happy?

GroundUp_News so we must blame the wealthy for lack of improvement in infrastructure and service delivery

GroundUp_News Rainwater storage tanks should b made compulsory in this water scarce country. Millions gallons of rain falls into the ground in rainy seasons. Tanks can b plumbed into household supply. Water suppliers don't want this 2happen their cash cow will disappear!

GroundUp_News Nonsense

GroundUp_News They also pay for that privilege and subsidise those that get their water for free

GroundUp_News

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Cape Town's water crisis worsened by the rich, study findsA recently published study of Cape Town’s domestic water consumption found that the Day Zero crisis of 2018 was largely due to the high water consumption of wealthy households while poor households struggled to meet their most basic water needs.
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