The Department of Water and Sanitation has called on Limpopo residents to use water sparingly as dam levels in the province have been on a week on week “downward spiral”.

In a statement, the department said the province’s water storage had taken a knock this week.

“The province’s dam levels have been on a downward spiral week-on-week, therefore, this calls for all water users in the province to be efficient and conservative in how they utilise water. The water stored in the province’s reservoirs slightly decreased to 81.8% this week from last week’s 82.2%.”

The statement said although the decrease is undesirable, the current dam levels are an improvement on the same time last year.

“These levels are better when compared to 63.1% during the same period last year. The decline means that the available water in the province as of this week is at 1 210.7 cubic metres out of a full capacity of 1 480.10 cubic metres,” the statement read.

Meanwhile, the department said water levels at the Integrated Vaal River are sitting stable above 80% for the past two weeks.

“The IVRS, which consists of 14 dams, is the lifeblood of Gauteng’s economy and also supplies Sasol and Eskom with water. Slightly down this week, the Vaal Dam has decreased by 0.7% to 87.9% this week from 88.6% last week. This still compares much better than at the same time last year when the dam was sitting at 38.1%,” the department said.

The department urged the public to “monitor their water use and ensure that the available water is used wisely and in a conservative manner to ensure the security of supply for the benefit of all”.

Source: South African Government News Agency