Sikilele Dimbela owns a cafe in Khayelitsha, Cape Town's largest Township. He describes how the possibility of a severe water crisis was well-known.

“The conversation about the water crisis is not a new conversation in South Africa.... its been quite some time, knowing about it that it’s something that we will face in the future.”

Before moving to his current house, he and his family lived in a part of the Township where they had to collect water from a standpipe on a daily basis.

“We used to go to a tap, that would cater for many people… you’d be in the queue with your bucket, 25 liter bottle, and you’d just collect water from there.”

Sikilele is a community leader and understands first-hand the impacts of water shortages on Khayelitsha and other areas of Cape Town like it, where people do not have security of tenure nor access to many basic services.

”Water is a human basic right to have. Everyone should have access to water.”

Khayelitsha and other Townships use a fraction of the City's water resources. People who live there rarely come close to using the amount of water dictated by the restrictions.

“We’ve been living under Day Zero all of our lives. When you are talking about [the] township, there [is] not enough water....we don’t even get to 50 liters a day.”

Even though Sikilele's business hasn't been directly affected by water restrictions, many people's livelihoods have, especially those who, for lack of other employment opportunities, run local car washes. And they haven't been helped to find alternatives.

”My problem with that was that they were not being advised and being equipped.. .For that person, they are making ends meet. That’s their daily job. So how about you come up with some creative ways of empowering them.”

Sikilele wants the City to leverage technology better to solve the water crisis; and he wants the people of Khayelitsha to benefit from this as well.

“We need technology right now... we are all in that conversation of how do we take part, how do we bring transformation and technology in our communities.”

Siki aims to inspire and empower creatives and entrepreneurs in the Township, and often hosts events and meetings at his coffee shop. He has a strong message for Government and wishes Cape Town’s government would do the same.

”What I would love to see from the City is to actually come into these communities... engage with people who are living in Khayelitsha. And hear what people are saying in Khayelitsha would like to happen.”

Natalya and her partner moved to the Klein Karoo four years ago. Since then it hasn't rained.

“We’re about to lose everything because of the drought.”

Owning a farm was a dream of theirs, and they made sure to fully consider the financial implications based on historic rainfall patterns, but that didn't forecast for them what the future would hold.

“We both wanted this. So it was a life dream that’s turned into a disastrous nightmare.”

The year they moved to the farm they had some unexpected costs due to the condition of the property. They needed to spend money feeding animals and restoring the fields to get things up and running. When the rain didn't come they had to start borrowing from the bank to feed the animals.

“When we had to start borrowing money from the bank, it’s almost like you know you can’t pay it back unless things turns around weather-wise, but if you don’t take the money how are you going to pay your staff, and feed the sheep? So you do it and you keep thinking, and you just keep praying.”

Each year became increasingly difficult, and they kept getting farther into debt because the rain never came, and they couldn't afford to dig and run a borehole.

“Within three years it's totally crippled us. Literally because of the water.“

Without rain and the ability to grow produce, it feels like an impossible situation to maintain the farm. They had to start getting rid of their animals. The whole community has been affected.

”The next door neighbors lost their cows because actually the SPCA came and took them away because they were skin and bone.”

Even the wild animals are suffering from the drought. Her cabbages are regularly being eaten by rabbits and other wildlife.

“It’s awful to see the cattle, because they are all starving to death.”

From no fault of their own, they are about to lose everything.

“It’s been a belittling, humiliating, in some cases destroying experience.”

Despite the dry conditions, there is very little help from any level of government.

“I know that there’s not much that can be done – you have to wait for the rain... But the government needs to step in with regards to the farmers.”

Natalya's hens are one of the last sources of income she has. Her produce supply business has been affected by drought and the country's poor economics.

“It impacts my whole business because the farmers are struggling to supply... What little they can produce, is getting more expensive; because they have to buy feed and things like that, that they never used to have to do before, which affects their prices, which affects the consumers. So it is such a vicious circle that I see everyday.”

Natalya believes that all the farmers in the area should be working together to fix this problem.

“This is when you should all stand together.”

Since the rain stopped, farmers have had to adopt alternative strategies. Carl is now doing seed production, which relies on drip irrigation and uses less water, but he has had to get rid of nearly all his animals, since they were no longer able to feed them.

“We had 150 sheep, now we’ve got 25 left. The 25 that we’ve kept is basically just so we have stock. If it does rain and it does pick up we can actually start again. The goats went from 75 goats to six… We just had to get rid of them as time went by, because there’s nothing worse that sitting watching a hungry animal. It’s terrible.”

Carl Buckle owns a farm in the Prins River Valley between Ladysmith and Montagu. The fields all used to be used for growing alfalfa, a plant used for animal feed. The farmers in the area have never seen anything like this before.

“I’ve been here seven years. But a lot of people in the valley have been here for 25-30 years. So, just by listening to other people in the area, no one has seen a drought like this.”

Even seed production can be precarious because of the drought. The ecosystem needed to sustain agriculture has been seriously affected.

“We didn’t have a harvest because it was so dry we actually lost our bees. We had bee farmers come put their hives down for pollination. The bees actually left.”

Many families like Carl's are now in the position of having to decide whether they sell their farms or carry on.

“It’s very stressful because our income opportunities are drying up on the farm. It’s a question of are we going to stop farming completely and just sit on the stoop and wait until it rains again... We are a bit stuck at the moment. It’s got to the point where we have to stick around and stay and try to make it work.”

It hasn't rained in the Prins River Valley in four years. Farmers rely on the river to irrigate their fields.

“The dam has been dry for two and half years already.”

Farmers are relying on boreholes, but even these are drying up.

“We are now busy emptying our last borehole. So three are dry already. This is a new one we’ve drilled now.”

Of the few animals left of the farm are Carl's dog, Dana.

“Because there’s absolutely no point in these circumstances trying to keep so many animals alive with the cost of feed, because the feed cost just went – lucerne [alfalfa] was 900 Rand a ton and it turned at about 3850 Rand a ton.”

Andrew lives on a 20 hectare farm in the Klein Karoo that used to be fed by a river that ran at the bottom of the property. There has been no water in the river since 2014.

“The only water on the smallholding is the river, that runs down there. It’s been dry for four years because of the drought.”

The fields on Andrew's properties used to grow a plant locals call lucerne [alfalfa] that the animals ate. It was maintained by regular rainfall.

“I’ve got no water to grow it.”

Andrew began drilling boreholes on his property when the river dried up.

“I was forced to drill a borehole, about three and a half years ago; because we were waiting and waiting and the river wouldn’t flow.”

This borehole lasted for a few months before it dried up.

“We found water which lasted for another maybe two months but then that dried up, so I was forced to drill another borehole.”

Boreholes are an expensive means to getting water and unfortunately, Andrew found that the water in his boreholes was turning salty.

“Boreholes aren’t cheap. We drilled one along this road. It’s about 100 meters deep and we found a lot of water, but it’s all salt water. It’s all salt.”

Andrew invested in a reverse osmosis machine to deal with the salt water coming from the boreholes. But this has its own challenges.

“The problem is with this system, is that it makes water so slowly… and I didn’t have enough power in my solar system to run the pump for that long.”

The 1,000 liter tank Andrew uses to collect water from his neighbor. Behind the tank you can see his barren fields.

“It was much easier for me to get a 1,000 litres every day in the tank from a neighbour.”

While most of the farms on the right hand side of this road have no water, Andrew's neighbor on the left has an abundance which he sells to local farmers.

“He’s so lucky to have all that water. Because no one else’s got it, except for him.”

Andrew in front of his water tanks.

“If I’m alone, 1,000 liters will last me about four days. That’s because I’m sharing with animals.”

Andrew and his girlfriend now rear only pigs and sheep on their farm. They previously had cows, but couldn't look after them and were relying on a neighbor for help.

“My neighbour kindly let me put the cows there for about six months. But eventually I said look I can’t – they’re my cows – I can’t carry on using your land.”

Andrew and his girlfriend would like to rear more sheep, but they need a lot of space and food - both of which require more water.

“Sheep farming is good money, but the thing is you’ve got to put in to take out. So at the moment the feed is costing me more than all of the money I’m generating from selling pigs at auction or the sheep.”

Growing feed in the fields is essential to being able to rear the animals. And to do this they need water.

“We want to grow these fields but I need the borehole to work.”

Growing feed in the fields is essential to being able to rear the animals. And to do this they need water.

Andrew moved to the Klein Karoo ten years ago. He compares his life there to Cape Town.

“You could go there and open that tap and not even think about it if the water’s coming out, and you can drink it. Out here, every time I open up a tap I worry. I’ve got to think, how much water is left in the tank and how long will it last for? And is it clean water?”

Andrew lives totally of grid and also has three water collection tanks behind his house. These provide drinking water for him and his dogs, and can keep them going for up to a year.

“I went through a period of eight months without a drop of rain falling here and I still had about a third of my tanks full. So I know that I can go for about a year with drinking water.”

Andrew's house is completely off-grid, and he installs solar panels for a living. The solar panels run all the electricity in his house and the pumps needed to bring the water up out of the boreholes.

Andrew started the Water Shedding Facebook group in 2016 because he was worried about future water security. The group now allows people to share information about water levels in their areas and advice on dealing with the crisis.

“I could see there was a drought going on, and I thought, hang on this can seriously affect big urban cities with millions of people because they’ve got basically the same set up that I’ve got but on a much grander scale.”

Andrew talked about the impact that the water crisis has had on people's awareness.

“They’re all aware now of what it is – it’s a scarce resource and they have to look after it.”

Kevin has been aware of water issues in Cape Town since the 1980s when he was a student at the University of Cape Town (UCT). Since then, the problem has recurred and small adjustments have been made to adapt.

“This thing goes back a long time in terms of all the shortages. When I was at UCT here studying in the 1980s we were always told that by the early-90s Cape Town would be facing a water crisis.”

Since the most recent crisis began, the City has taken steps to reduce its use of water. But Kevin points out this was from a very high starting point.

“We’ve saved 60% of the water we were using then. But we were using water very lavishly.”

October is a critical period as it is the end of Cape Town's hydrological year, where dam levels need to sustain them through the next summer. Kevin believes the City's water levels are no better than when the first signs of the crisis unfolded.

“We are no better than when we came to the end of 2015 in terms of storage levels.”

Kevin is working with the City government to improve their water management. He believes they have gotten much better at using data to inform their decisions and improve systems.

“The things that have changed have been improved management of water, and a massive improvement of our water management treatment in the City of Cape Town.”

Despite this Kevin believes the City is far too focused on managing the supply of water rather than the overall cycle of water use, including: quality, waste water management, and equity of distribution.

“The City has struggled to get to deal with issues of equity, issues of environment and ecology. Those are the things that are poorly addressed - of building community capacity for instance, citizen capacity. Those are the things you have to do if you’re going to look to the water long-term fix.”

Every year, Kevin runs the "Penninsula paddle," a canoe ride through the City's canals, to raise awareness about the quality of water in Cape Town. He believes the canals are key to understanding the health of the city. It goes through some of the most under-serviced areas and toughest places to live in Cape Town.

“The whole conversation has got to shift to quality, and the drainage aspect and to know that it creates living conditions that are unpleasant, unsafe, unhealthy.”

Kevin talks about the economic impacts of the water crisis. They have been keenly felt across all sectors, including at the university, which has experienced a drop off of student numbers.

“Investors and tourists and students within the university here from overseas who want to do courses here are reluctant… And the losses in the Western Cape agricultural sector have been high. Among others there are estimates that guess that between 30-50,000 jobs have been lost since October last year [2017] in the agricultural industry.”

Kevin says the City has funneled a lot of money into public awareness campaigns, but much more can be done.

“A compact city that is more efficient in its transport and its water systems and energy systems is going to change the City of Cape Town.”

Kevin believes that the way individuals and communities use water is key to solving the crisis.

“[The crisis] will be solved by community involvement, by governance systems which are very different to the ones we are currently involved in, and one has to say an economic system which is very radically different if we are going to look to long-term generational involvement in water management, in resource management.”

Bradley is an exercise therapist who lives in Stellenbosch and works from home. He is keenly aware of the water crisis.

“From about four to five years ago already there were people saying, ‘look, this is something that we really need to take notice of'… For the last three to four years there’s been a steady decline in your usual winter rainfall that we’ve had.”

His day-to-day life has been affected by the water crisis and can only use 50 liters of water a day.

“The City of Cape Town now has various levels of water restrictions... our current restrictions, we are limited to 50 liters per person per day of water through the municipal sources. If you are using more water than what you should be there are significant fines that cost from that sense to try to mitigate people using more water than what they should be.”

Even though Stellenbosch is located outside the Cape Town Metro area, it is still affected by the restriction. It is an area that relies heavily on agriculture, particularly vineyards and tourism, two industries direct affected by the water restrictions.

“The economical impact that it had on the city from a tourism perspective last year was massive.”

Bradley is positive about living with only 50 liters of water a day, and has found it easy to reduce his consumption.

“It’s become a norm, and what has surprised me the most is how as a household it’s actually fairly simple.”

Bradley believes there are many strategies to reduce water, as he is doing in his household, but the important part is whether people are actually implementing them.

“You can reduce water pressure, you can reduce the amount of water, so there are plenty of strategies available. So it’s certainly, by no means, it’s not difficult to find strategies to help reduce your water usage. It’s just a case of whether people are actually doing it and implementing it.”

Bradley's household has two people.

“There are two people that are living here, we are able to use less than 50 litres of water per person per day – so under 100 litres per day… and that includes: washing, washing clothes, washing dishes, flushing [the] toilet, all of that.”

Bradley talked in more details about the techniques they use to save water. In the kitchen they use a five liter bucket in their sink to monitor their usage of water while washing dishes.

“I fill up around about five liters in the morning of soapy water, then wash the dishes and once the water gets to the point where you’re not actually cleaning the dishes anymore, then I’d stack the dishes and use that water to rinse the dishes off, then discard the water into the garden… then in the evening again refill up with soapy water and wash those dishes, and then use it to rinse off… you’re never really using more than ten litres.”

They have reduced the length of their showers and employ a number of water reuse strategies.

“We’ve got a 90-second shower rule. I’ve managed to get a shower down to under a minute… from your shower collect grey water in a bucket that gets used for flushing toilet.”

Even with all these different measures in place to reduce their water consumption, Bradley has found the change a profound learning experience.

“What has been the biggest eye opener for me is why do I need more than 50 liters?”

Bradley has also put up signs in his bathroom to remind clients to reduce their water consumption. He believes it is one way he can contribute from a business perspective.

“From a business perspective you are actually doing something to mitigate the impact of the water shortage.”

Even though this may be more effort, using hand sanitizer saves significant amount of water.

“You have to go to the shop to buy hand sanitizer more often than usual but the amount of times people are running a tap to wet their hands, and the tap keeps running while they're rolling the soap in their hands and it’s running.”

Bradley thinks the signs have had a real impact on his clients' awareness.

“It creates awareness for people that are maybe not that aware of what’s going on. I find it hard to believe they wouldn’t be aware, but for those to just kind of think twice.”

Bradley is mindful of the future and doesn't think restrictions should be lifted.

“Technically speaking the dam levels are at a point now where they could ease restrictions but I think from a mindset perspective I would hope that they would stay in place.”

Bradley talked about the impact Day Zero would have had on him and his housemate, and how they would manage going to work with the need to go collect water from designated points.

“If it had got to Day Zero where the water system was completely shut off, you were limited to 25 liters of water per person per day, which you had to go and collect from certain collection points… It was a somewhat scary proposition, but if this is something that we have to do and we’re going to have to live with, you’ve got to make it work.”

While the City has taken measures to alleviate the crisis, he is also worried about the ecological impact of some of these measures.

“There are desalination plants being built all over the Western Cape… but what ecological impact does that have going forward? If you factor in global warming and climate change together with the potential changes in the ecosystems within the oceans, where the desalination plants are being built, what impact is that going to have?”

Bradley is mindful of the impact that climate change has had and is going to have on Cape Town. He believes the city needs to start thinking differently about how it uses its resources to prepare for the future.

“Twenty-five years ago you would never have thought that we’d be in this position now. What’s to say that in 50-years time things aren’t going to be going full circle again. It’s a case of being mindful of how you use those resources, and water is just one of them… it’s a mindset shift that I think everyone could benefit from.”

Deon Smit delivers water to a hospice outside of Cape Town. He has been a water activist since 2005.

“I’ve been involved with it since 2005. Because that’s when the first water restrictions in Cape Town came into effect. Although everyone seems to have forgotten about it. But the problem with that, it’s like any law there’s no use bringing something in if you can’t police it.”

Deon delivers water all over the Western Cape to farming communities and not-for-profit organizations.

“Wherever the need is then we will go... Since February [2018] we have distributed about 150,000 liters of water.”

In this hospice, the water delivered is stored in shipping containers until it is ready to be used. Aside from his humanitarian work, he recognizes the scale of the problem.

“This is a very long-term problem.”

Deon set up South African Water Warrior in February 2018.

“The dam levels were going down, and people were still abusing the water, not realizing.”

Deon believes the City Government can be doing much more to help save water, including improving the way buildings use water.

“There’s a couple of things that I feel the City can do better. Besides policing the public, from their side. One big thing that comes up time and again, is when they approve new building plans, they should include a grey water system. That will make a hell of a difference.”

Deon believes the City Government can start by saving water in their own buildings.

“The City [government] in their own buildings are wasting water. They are not even adapting their own buildings, and making changes there to save water. Which is a major problem.”

Deon has seen many positive changes in the way people are aware of their water consumption, since the beginning of the crisis, and doesn't think the restriction levels should change.

“Changes have taken place, the thing is to keep people, to keep on doing it. Don’t go back to our normal old ways. And I say ‘our’ because I was also guilty. So yes, we can do it. We’ve done it. We’ve prevented the Day Zero… the public have done it. And it shows what can be done if we stand together.”

Deon has seen many positive changes in the way people are aware of their water consumption since the beginning of the crisis and doesn't think the restriction levels should change.

“We are coping, we have proved that we can get along with 50 liters a day per person. So why do you want to go change it now. Because the minute you change it, it’s going to go back to square one.”

Here you can see an homage to Nelson Mandela (Madiba) along the Coastal Highway.

Private businesses are also placing notices to encourage water-saving measures.