Water

The drought in Cape Town is a vivid example of a world struggling with increasingly complex water-related problems. As we shift the way we manage water, we need to recognise the contribution of natural infrastructure – forests, swamps, aquifers, grasslands and other resources often taken for granted – to our economic growth and climate resilience.

Recent research has found that extreme weather, such as prolonged drought, has increased competition between communities over dwindling resources like water and pastures. A project in South Sudan seeks to build climate resilience by setting up early warning systems, weather monitoring tools, field schools to teach farmers best practices, and seed stores to preserve and exchange crop seeds in the event of climate shocks.

This book is a compilation of stories, bringing together several partners to replicate and up-scale an integrated approach for resilience, linking disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptation and ecosystem management and restoration. The programme

Source area protection has been instrumental to ensure adequate and sustainable water resources in Sri Lanka's ancient times, but gradual encroachment into the hill country catchments and increasing population have put growing pressures on water resources.

The City of Cape Town has introduced the idea of Day Zero to focus everyone’s attention on managing water consumption as tightly as possible by cajoling water consumers into reducing usage. Day Zero is when most of the city’s taps will be switched off – literally.

Drought is among the most disastrous natural hazards and occurs in virtually all climate regimes around the globe. Advances in dynamical modeling and the use of hybrid methods have improved drought prediction, but challenges still remain to improve the accuracy of drought forecasting.

Extreme weather, temperature rise and lower rainfall due to climate change could hurt farmers’ income by up to 20-25% in the medium term, according to the Indian government’s latest annual economic survey. But new technology and better farm management can be deployed to improve irrigation systems to reduce vulnerability.

Cape Town is in the unenviable situation of being the first major city in the modern era to face the threat of running out of drinking water. However, the plight of the drought-hit South African city is just one extreme example of a problem that experts have long been warning about - water scarcity.