Spotlight series

FACTUAL BRIEFINGS BY EXPERTS

The Spotlight series offers concise factual briefings, each containing information on a specialised topic of which the interviewee has expert knowledge rooted in deep professional engagement and personal involvement during the crisis.

At around five minutes each, these clips afford the opportunity to hear first-hand and efficiently from experienced and knowledgeable individuals on some of the key subjects to have emerged from the crisis event.

The topics cover a wide spectrum – from the impact of alien vegetation on catchment areas to the impact of the Day Zero campaign on tourism; from successes in non-revenue water to the challenges experienced by the engineering teams tasked with executing an emergency build programme; from initial failures and delays in implementing restrictions to the innovative water map introduced towards the end to effect behaviour change by making publicly available data on water use per household.

Identified, edited and curated by CTDRLI co-lead Victor van Aswegen from the in-depth full-length filmed interviews.

Was the drought caused by climate change?

Prof Mark New

Pro Vice-Chancellor for Climate Change ● University of Cape Town

Recorded: 12 Oct 2018 ● Duration: 04:45

The unprecedented drought experienced by the southwestern Cape over the three years from 2015 to 2017 is commonly assumed to be the result of climate change. Is this correct? Prof Mark New, University of Cape Town Pro Vice-Chancellor for Climate Change, gives the scientific view.

The severity of the drought and assurance of supply

Dr Piotr Wolski

Research Associate ● Climate System Analysis Group, University of Cape Town

Recorded: 12 Oct 2018 ● Duration: 04:07

Dr Piotr Wolski puts the crisis in perspective, comparing the severity of the 2015-2017 drought with the severity of drought the Western Cape water supply system is designed to cope with.

System reliability and the need for restrictions

Barry Wood

Manager ● Bulk Water, City of Cape Town

Recorded: 5 Feb 2019 ● Duration: 04:35

Restrictions on water use under drought conditions are built into the rules of the system, points out Barry Wood, City of Cape Town Manager of Bulk Water – and the more severe the drought, the harsher the restrictions have to be.

Delays in implementing restrictions after first drought year

Peter Flower

Recently retired Director ● Water and Sanitation, City of Cape Town

Recorded: 11 Sep 2019 ● Duration: 05:47

Opportunities were lost to put water restrictions in place in the early phase of the drought, says Peter Flower. Save it while you have it, and start saving as early as possible.

Leadership, data, and calling a crisis

Craig Kesson

Chief Resilience Officer ● City of Cape Town

Recorded: 23 Jan 2019 ● Duration: 05:46

During rapid-onset disasters, leaders respond immediately to things that are falling down around them. Slow-onset disasters, on the other hand, require decisions as to when to call a crisis. Framing issues and prospects for leaders using data and information helps to focus decision making, says Craig Kesson.

Challenges of the emergency build programme

Peter Flower

Recently retired Director ● Water and Sanitation, City of Cape Town

Recorded: 11 Sep 2019 ● Duration: 06:43

As City of Cape Town Director of Water and Sanitation during the crisis, Peter Flower and his teams were tasked with implementing an emergency build programme. They realised quite soon that the programme was probably unrealistic and unachievable during the envisaged timeframes. He recalls the challenges they encountered that confirmed their initial assessment.

Constraints on emergency supply augmentation

Craig Kesson

Chief Resilience Officer ● City of Cape Town

Recorded: 23 Jan 2019 ● Duration: 07:32

City of Cape Town Chief Resilience Officer Craig Kesson led the Water Resilience Task Team during 2017. He sketches the multiple constraints encountered in the planned implementation of an ambitious 500 megalitre a day emergency augmentation programme.

System modelling, performance and resilience

Dr Lloyd Fisher-Jeffes

Water resources engineer ● Aurecon

Recorded: 4 Sep 2019 ● Duration: 06:28

A surface water scheme is designed to assure supply at normal levels under most conditions. But the design also assumes that supply will be lower and consumption restricted under drought conditions. During the crisis, the system functioned according to plan, says Dr Lloyd Fisher-Jeffes: consumption was severely curtailed, by almost forty five percent, and the city did not run out of water.

Impact of invasive alien vegetation on catchment water yield

Louise Stafford

Director ● The Nature Conservancy

Recorded: 20 Feb 2019 ● Duration: 04:48

The amount of water lost every year due to alien vegetation in the catchment areas is equivalent to about two months of Cape Town’s consumption. Catchment restoration, says Louise Stafford, can increase supply at a tenth of the cost of alternatives such as desalination, groundwater abstraction, re-use and additional dams.

Implications of average usage reduction required

Dr Lloyd Fisher-Jeffes

Water resources engineer ● Aurecon

Recorded: 4 Sep 2019 ● Duration: 03:56

A substantial proportion of Cape Town’s population live in informal settlements and consume such low quantities of water per person under normal conditions that these cannot be reduced further under restrictions. Dr Lloyd Fisher-Jeffes highlights an implication: in order to achieve overall usage reduction of any given percentage, freely consuming households in formal areas have to reduce their consumption by more than that percentage.

Behavioural nudges

Prof Martine Visser

Professor ● School of Economics, University of Cape Town

Recorded: 28 Feb 2019 ● Duration: 04:37

Prof Martine Visser worked with the City of Cape Town at the onset of the drought period, using behavioural nudges to induce water savings by citizens. She shares some of the findings on the effectiveness of the various nudges amongst different groups and the impact on consumption.

The difficulty of segmenting communications markets

Priya Reddy

Director ● Communication, City of Cape Town

Recorded: 4 Feb 2019 ● Duration: 04:17

Priya Reddy was City of Cape Town Director of Communication during the crisis. She describes the difficulty she experienced first-hand of segmenting communications markets, of targeting different messages to local and international audiences.

The impact of Day Zero on tourism

David Green

CEO ● V&A Waterfront

Recorded: 22 Jan 2019 ● Duration: 05:49

David Green, CEO of the V&A Waterfront, an iconic tourist destination, gives a sense of the damage to international tourism numbers inflicted by the Day Zero messaging. There was, he says, a point where it was realised within the industry that the bigger crisis was the economic crisis caused by this messaging.

The water map

Prof Martine Visser

Professor ● School of Economics, University of Cape Town

Recorded: 28 Feb 2019 ● Duration: 04:22

A live water map was rolled out in 2018, enabling households to see their own water usage compared to that of their neighbours. Prof Martine Visser, who worked with the City of Cape Town on the project, elaborates on this as a tool to encourage compliance.

Non-revenue water

Claire Pengelly

Water programme manager ● GreenCape

Recorded: 13 Nov 2018 ● Duration: 06:12

Running your business in such a way that a large proportion of your stock is lost or not charged for is not compatible with sound commercial practice or financial viability. Yet this is precisely what many municipalities in South Africa are doing, with non-revenue water rates as high as 41%. Claire Pengelly unpacks the concept.

Pressure management

Barry Wood

Manager ● Bulk Water, City of Cape Town

Recorded: 5 Feb 2019 ● Duration: 04:37

One of the standout successes of the water crisis period in Cape Town was the pressure management programme undertaken by the city. Barry Wood describes how the existing pressure management programme, already in place when the drought hit, was ramped up aggressively during the crisis, and then rolled out across larger areas, to great effect, with lower pressure in the system reducing water flows through taps and losses from leaks.

Theory and practice of restrictive water management devices

Dr Kevin Winter

Senior lecturer ● Environmental and Geographical Science, University of Cape Town

Recorded: 5 Nov 2018 ● Duration: 04:26

While sound in theory, water management devices turned out to be a source of contention and discontent among households on which they were imposed by city authorities. Dr Kevin Winter gives a dispassionate account.

Points of distribution

Councillor JP Smith

Mayoral Committee member for Safety and Security ● City of Cape Town

Recorded: 12 Sep 2019 ● Duration: 03:36

Points of distribution, under a Day Zero scenario, would be where Capetonians would go to collect their daily rations of 25 litres per person. Councillor JP Smith shares some of the thinking, planning and detail behind the concept.

Building basement water filtered to potable standard

Nardo Snyman

Sustainability specialist ● Growthpoint Properties

Recorded: 13 Nov 2018 ● Duration: 04:58

Basement water in commercial buildings is commonly pumped out and disposed of. It can also be used, says Nardo Snyman.

Water re-use project undertaken by major business

Khiyam Fredericks

National Technical Manager ● Old Mutual

Recorded: 5 Sep 2019 ● Duration: 05:14

Successful water re-use projects rely on psychology as much as engineering. Khiyam Fredericks shares insights from his experience implementing such a project at Old Mutual’s Cape Town head office campus.