Staff Reporter
THE City of Windhoek’s municipal council has announced the enforcement of water-saving measures effective 1st September 2024, following the Council’s declaration of Water Severe Scarcity, Category D drought, on 31st July 2024.
This declaration aligns with the City of Windhoek’s Water Management Plan of 2019, which outlines the approach to managing water emergencies. The plan categorizes supply situations and specifies demand management actions that the City will coordinate and enforce as required.
Lydia Amutenya, Public Relations Officer within the City of Windhoek, explained that NamWater manages the security of water supply each year through an integrated approach.
“After assessing the water supply situation at the end of each rainy season, NamWater, in consultation with the Central Areas of Namibia (CAN) stakeholders, including the City of Windhoek, projects the most likely supply scenarios for the following two years using a stochastic computer model. This model aims to optimize the use of all available water sources to last through at least two rainy seasons, allowing for potential augmentation from future rainfall and runoff. Unfortunately, the 2023-2024 rainy season ended in April 2024 without sufficient inflow into the Von Bach, Swakoppoort, and Omatako dams, which supply Windhoek and CAN with potable water. At the annual CAN Workshop on 13th May 2024, NamWater presented the model predictions for the water supply outlook for 2024-2026, with a focus on the remainder of this year until the next rainy season. Based on these projections, NamWater can only supply Windhoek with 148,822 cubic meters of water per week, compared to the projected demand of 498,631 cubic meters per week for the 2024-2025 period,” Amutenya said.
She added that this means NamWater can only meet 30% of Windhoek’s water demand, leaving the remaining 70% to be supplemented by the City of Windhoek’s managed water resources, namely the Potable Reclamation Plant and the Windhoek Aquifer (borehole scheme).
“In response to this situation, the City of Windhoek began aquifer abstraction in June 2023 after obtaining an emergency abstraction permit from the Ministry of Agriculture, Water, and Land Reform to extract 8.5 million cubic meters per year. Should there be a need to increase this abstraction to further augment the supply shortage, an amendment to the permit will be required. However, increasing the abstraction above 9.5 million cubic meters per year may lead to water quality concerns and should be delayed through effective water demand management. It is important to note that Windhoek Aquifer mining (abstraction), in the absence of recharge (which can only be done during times of adequate available surplus surface water in the three dams), should be done in a planned and controlled fashion, and subsequent consumption must be managed strictly within the allocated quota,” Amutenya said.
She added that, given the current water supply situation and to ensure sustainable water usage during this drought, the City of Windhoek will maintain the increased consumption charges to encourage reduced water use.
Additionally, the City will implement and intensify the enforcement of water-saving measures applicable to severe water scarcity, Category D (drought), effective 1st September 2024.
