The Department of Water and Sanitation has appealed to rural communities, who don\u2019t have access to potable water, to take the opportunity of harvesting rain water during summer to sustain them through dry conditions.<\/p>\n
The department said that this week\u2019s torrential rains have slightly improved the country\u2019s water situation, increasing Eastern Cape dam levels by almost 2%, while the country\u2019s average dam levels went up from 62.2% to 62.6%.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the past four years, vast parts of the Eastern Cape have been experiencing severe dry conditions, which left many water users struggling to access water for basic use. However, the recent rains have brought some relief for many communities, especially the rural populace that harvested as much water as it could from the rains,\u201d the department said in its latest weekly report on dam levels.<\/p>\n
With more rains predicted for next week, the department said it is expected that South Africa\u2019s dam levels will improve exponentially in the run-up to the festive season, when parts of the country will experience flash floods.<\/p>\n
However, the department has urged water users to continue saving water, as the country is not out of the woods.<\/p>\n
Gauteng, whose main supplier is Vaal Dam, experienced a 1% increase in its dam levels from 90.8% to 91.7% this week, with Free State dams also increasing from 71.6% last week to 72.1%.<\/p>\n
The rain in the Northern Cape has also had a positive impact, as the province\u2019s dam levels increased from 89.5% to 90.1% this week.<\/p>\n
However, the department noted that as the Western Cape approaches its hydrological season of winter rains at the end of November, the province\u2019s dam levels have begun a marginal downward slide week-on-week. Provincial dam levels have dropped from 80% to 79.5% this week.<\/p>\n
Other provinces that benefitted from the heavy rains are KwaZulu-Natal and the North West. Dam levels in KwaZulu-Natal have increased from 52.7% to 53.3%, while North West dams increased marginally from 62.5% to 63.2%.<\/p>\n
\u201cMpumalanga and Limpopo levels dropped by an average 1%. The situation remains dire in the Mopani region where the big three dams \u2013 Tzaneen, Middel-Letaba and Modjadji hover below 10%,\u201d the department said. \u2013 SAnews.gov.za<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Department of Water and Sanitation has appealed to rural communities, who don\u2019t have access to potable water, to take the opportunity of harvesting rain water during summer to sustain them through dry conditions. The department said that this week\u2019s torrential rains have slightly improved the country\u2019s water situation, increasing Eastern Cape dam levels by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[38678],"class_list":{"0":"post-173206","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-sanews","8":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173206\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}