The rainy season for 2017/18 ended at the end of April this year. NamWater, after assessing the supply situation, announced the supply outlook for the following three years 2018 to 2020, but in particular the remainder of this year until the next rainy season.
As part of the City of Windhoek’s continuous drive to improve internal procedures aimed at better service delivery to our residents, the City of Windhoek in 2017 developed an integrated approach to link the annual supply outlook announcement by NamWater to water management in the city. Apart from creating a link between supply management on the side of NamWater and Demand Management on the side of the City of Windhoek, the Water Management Plan 2017 (WMP) created a holistic approach to Demand Management as an ongoing initiative, instead of an emergency fall back only during times of drought.
The announcement recently made by NamWater was that, the inflow in the dams for the past rainy season amounted to only about 24.91% of the average expected inflow. Therefore, in line with the provisions of the Water Management Plan, the City of Windhoek herewith announces to our esteemed residents that, based on the current situation with regards to the availability of water for the next 3 years, the City of Windhoek has no choice but to increase Demand Management actions by moving from the current Category B – Supply Alert to a Category C – Water Scarcity (see Figure 1) as per the scarcity severity index below with effect from the 1st of August 2018. An official water scarcity is therefore declared and subsequently water restrictions must be implemented accordingly. The water savings target for Windhoek accordingly increases from 5% to 10%.