Can Hong Kong learn from how South Africa’s Cape Town handled its water shortage crisis?
Dire threat mobilised a city in South Africa, but local residents unaware of wastage and growing supply problem here, experts say
Hong Kong has much to learn about conservation from a recent Cape Town water crisis – by harnessing the power of social media and reforming tariffs, according to an environmental expert from the South African city.
At the beginning of this year, Cape Town announced it was facing “Day Zero”, a dreaded date when the city’s taps would run dry. But by April it had averted disaster, using measures Hong Kong can adopt, says Kevin Winter, senior lecturer in environmental and geographical science at the University of Cape Town.
“Cape Town was quite excessive in its water use,” Winter says. “Around 2015, we were using around 235 litres per person per day. We were complacent.”
And Hong Kong is not far behind – each local household uses up to 224 litres of water daily, according to policy think tank Civic Exchange in a 2017 report.
A third of Hong Kong’s freshwater is lost through leaky government supply, private pipes, and even theft, Civic Exchange board chairman Evan Auyang says.
While the Water Services Department says it has brought its water leakage rate down to about 15 per cent, Auyang says a great deal of the leaks are still occurring outside the mains system, within residential estates and buildings themselves.