A heatwave is expected to continue into Saturday, in Gauteng, Western Bushveld, Western parts of Mpumalanga and extreme parts of the North West Province, the South African Weather Service said in an advisory.
The Department of Water and Sanitation said the heatwave attributes to declining levels of water in at least 6 of the country’s provinces – Gauteng, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, central and eastern regions of North West, northern areas of Free State, and the northern parts of KwaZulu-Natal.
The Department said water supply systems remain stable although a slight decrease is observed in some of the storage reservoirs around the country.
As a result, water users including domestic, agricultural and industry are encouraged to use less water.
This, as the national surface water storage is at 75.9% of full, a 0.6% decrease from the previous week.
Eastern Cape provincial surface water storage has declined from 85.6% to 84.4 this week, Free State from 73.5% to 72.8%, Gauteng from 84.4% to 84.3%, KwaZulu-Natal from 79.6% to 79.4%, Mpumalanga from 77.9% to 76.9%, Limpopo from 69.4% to 68.8%, and Western Cape from 93.2% to 92.7%.
Storage capacity in 10 out of the 14 country’s major Water Supply Systems (WSS) has shown slight decline by below 1% on average.
The Integrated Vaal River System (IVRS) which consists of 14 dams has dropped from 72.2% to 71.5% this week.
Last year at time, the water levels were sitting at 86.0%. The Vaal Dam, one of the country’s largest dams in the IVRS, is at the lowest level of 28.2%.
Luvuvhu WSS in Limpopo, serving Thohoyandou has dropped from 88.3% to 87.8%, while Polokwane WSS has also declined from 79.3% to 78.8%.
In the Free State, Bloemfontein WSS which serves Bloemfontein, Botshabelo and Thaba Nchu has dropped from 75.4% to 75.1%.
Orange WSS which supplies Free State and Northern and Eastern Cape provinces has moved from 79.6% to 79.2%.
Crocodile West WSS which serves Tshwane in Gauteng and Rustenburg in North West, has dropped from 75.0% to 74.2%. Crocodile East WSS serving Nelspruit, KaNyamazane, Matsulu, Malelane and Komatipoort in Mpumalanga is also down from 63.3% to 60.8% this week.
The North West province, a largely semi-arid region, has experienced a continuous decline of its surface water storage which is at 56.7% this week, as compared to last week’s 57.6%.
Last year at this time, the province’s water levels stood at 75.8%.
The province has a total number of 28 dams, and 14 of them are below 50% mark and only one dam, Elands Dam in Swartruggens River is at a low level with 10%.
Northern Cape province is the only province which has increased water levels by 1.8% this week. The province’s surface water storage is 66.9% this week, a dramatic increase from last week’s 65.1%.
The following district municipalities have surface water storage below 50%: Ngaka Modiri Molema District Municipality in North-West has 30.8% this week.
Mopani and Capricorn Districts in Limpopo are at 32% and 21.8% respectively. Sedibeng District in the Free State is at 29.6%.
Parts of the districts have been experiencing moderate to extreme drought
conditions in the past 24 months as a result of persistent below-normal rainfall in these areas.