The Department of Water and Sanitation in the Northern Cape has urged residents to use water sparingly as the average water storage in the Northern Cape has recorded a decline to 92.5% this week from 92.9% last week.

The Vanderkloof Dam which borders the Free State and Northern Cape provinces has decreased from last week’s 97.3% to 96.6%.

The two major river systems in the Northern Cape, the Orange Rivers System recorded 86.5% this week with the Vaal River System recording an average of 96.6% this week.

The Spitskop Storage Weir in the Harts River which have a Full Supply Capacity (FSC) of 57.831million cubic meters (m³) is at 96.9%, a decrease from last week’s 98.6%.

Vaalharts storage weir with a Full Supply Capacity of 50.682 m³ have slightly increased from last week’s 79.2% to 79.9%.

The Douglas Storage Weir has increased from 105.4% to 107.3% while the Boegoeberg storage weir in the Orange Rives system has declined from last week’s 103.9% last week to 102.9%.

Karee Dam which is serving the people of Calvinia have deteriorated from 17.8% last week to 15.4% this week.

It must be noted that the Northern Cape has balancing dams and not storage dams. The difference being that storage dams’ primary purpose is for long term water storage while balancing dams are designed to act as multipurpose facilities by diverting water into canals, pipelines and act as pump stations. Therefore, the water availability in the Northern Cape fluctuates and vary from week to week.

Source: Government of South Africa