Water crisis could refer to:
Cape Town is the legislative capital of South Africa. It is the country's oldest city and the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. Cape Town is the country's second-largest city, after Johannesburg, and the largest in the Western Cape. The city is part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality.
A drought is a period of drier-than-normal conditions. A drought can last for days, months or years. Drought often has large impacts on the ecosystems and agriculture of affected regions, and causes harm to the local economy. Annual dry seasons in the tropics significantly increase the chances of a drought developing, with subsequent increased wildfire risks. Heat waves can significantly worsen drought conditions by increasing evapotranspiration. This dries out forests and other vegetation, and increases the amount of fuel for wildfires.
The Eastern Cape is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. Its capital is Bhisho, and its largest city is Gqeberha. Due to its climate and nineteenth-century towns, it is a common location for tourists. It is also known for having been home to many anti-apartheid activists, including Nelson Mandela.
The Western Cape is a province of South Africa, situated on the south-western coast of the country. It is the fourth largest of the nine provinces with an area of 129,449 square kilometres (49,981 sq mi), and the third most populous, with an estimated 7 million inhabitants in 2020. About two-thirds of these inhabitants live in the metropolitan area of Cape Town, which is also the provincial capital. The Western Cape was created in 1994 from part of the former Cape Province. The two largest cities are Cape Town and George.
The area known today as Cape Town has no written history before it was first mentioned by Portuguese explorer Bartholomeu Dias in 1488. The German anthropologist Theophilus Hahn recorded that the original name of the area was 'ǁHui ǃGais' – a toponym in the indigenous Khoe language meaning "where clouds gather."
The environmental movement in South Africa traces its history from the beginnings of conservation and preservation groups in the late 19th century, to the rise of radicalism amongst local ecologists and activists. The early environmental movement in South Africa was primarily made up of conservation groups whose membership was dominated by affluent whites. Many of these groups advocated for forms of fortress conservation that were used to justify forcibly removing Black South Africans from their land. Throughout the mid to late 20th century, justice-centered environmental groups sprung up in connection with anti-apartheid movements advocating for change on issues that affected the environment as well as the rights of workers and rural peoples, showing how environmental issues in the country were "inextricably linked to issues of race and politics."
The climate of South Africa is determined by South Africa's situation between 22°S and 35°S, in the Southern Hemisphere's subtropical zone, and its location between two oceans, Atlantic and the Indian.
The Western Cape Water Supply System (WCWSS) is a complex water supply system in the Western Cape region of South Africa, comprising an inter-linked system of six main dams, pipelines, tunnels and distribution networks, and a number of minor dams, some owned and operated by the Department of Water and Sanitation and some by the City of Cape Town.
The Berg River Dam is a 68-metre (223 ft) high dam on the Berg River in South Africa. It is the centerpiece of the Berg Water Project (BWP) which is designed to capture the winter rainfall and store it for supply to Cape Town during the dry summer months. The project in turn forms an important part of the Western Cape Water Supply System (WCWSS), an intricate system of dams and bulk water infrastructure that provides water to more than 3 million people. At the inauguration of the dam in 2009, then President of South Africa Kgalema Motlanthe called the project "a good example of how public infrastructure projects can be used to contribute meaningfully to poverty eradication and to foster social empowerment of the people." The Berg River Dam was the first dam in South Africa to be designed and constructed in accordance with the guidelines of the World Commission on Dams. It has been completed on time and within budget. The Berg River basin and the adjacent metropolitan area of Cape Town are of particular importance to the Western Cape region because, although the basin generates only about 3% of the country's water resources, it is home to about 8% of South Africa's population, and produces about 12% of GDP.
Water supply and sanitation in Greece is characterised by diversity. While Athens receives its water from a series of reservoirs, some of which are located 200 km away, some small islands are supplied with water from tankers. Greeks have suffered from repeated droughts, the most recent one occurring in 2007. The EU supported the construction of numerous wastewater treatment plants since the 1990s in order to achieve EU environmental standards. While the wastewater discharge of the biggest cities is now in compliance with these standards, some smaller towns still lag behind.
The 1980 Amherst, Massachusetts, water shortage was a significant water crisis that affected the town of Amherst, Massachusetts and led to the unprecedented closure of the University of Massachusetts Amherst from September 4-8, 1980. This crisis was part of a broader pattern of water shortages that had impacted communities across Massachusetts since 1965, during one of the region's most severe droughts.
Through its history, Chile was regularly affected by droughts. In the more arid parts of Chile droughts are produced when there are low amounts of snow accumulation in the Andes. Chilean coastal drainage basins without snow accumulation are particularly vulnerable to drought.
The 2014 Negeri Sembilan and Selangor water crisis was a water crisis that began in the Malaysian states of Negeri Sembilan and Selangor and lasted from February to August 2014. Its roots can be traced to hot and dry climatic conditions in Peninsular Malaysia in early 2014, but other factors, including water infrastructure problems and political deadlock in negotiations between the government and private water concessionaires also played central roles. It was the worst water crisis in the state since the 1998 Klang Valley water crisis.
The Cape Town water crisis in South Africa was a multi-year period in 2015–2020 of water shortage in the Western Cape region, most notably affecting the City of Cape Town. Dam water levels began decreasing in 2015 and the Cape Town water crisis peaked during mid-2017 to mid-2018 when water levels hovered between 14 and 29 percent of total dam capacity.
Witsand Solar Desalination Plant (WSDP) is a water purification project under construction in South Africa.
The 2019 Chennai water crisis was a water crisis occurring in India, most notably in the coastal city of Chennai in Tamil Nadu. On 19 June 2019, Chennai city officials declared that "Day Zero", or the day when almost no water is left, had been reached, as all the four main reservoirs supplying water to the city had run dry. Two years of deficient monsoon rainfall, particularly in late 2017 and throughout much of 2018 had led to this crisis.
Ayakha Melithafa is a South African environmental activist.
The Eastern Cape region of South Africa experienced a severe multi-year drought from 2015 through early 2020. The drought was one of the worst in the region's history and led the South African government to declare the region a "disaster area" in October 2019.