Cape Town collective water use has gone up again to an average of 565Ml a day after the City quietly moved Day Zero to 2019.

“Unfortunately, usage has increased by 54 million litres per day from last week’s record low of 511 million litres per day,” said Deputy Mayor Ian Neilson in a statement on Tuesday.

Water usage will continue to be monitored, with Level 6B restrictions still in place, but the City still has to slash its consumption to 450Ml per day in order to stretch the available water supplies through the rest of the year.

This is also a requirement set by the national Department of Water and Sanitation, which gazetted a directive that the City cut its water consumption by 45% of normal usage.

“If all Capetonians join us by keeping their consumption down to 50 litres of water a day, or less, we will avoid having to take more drastic actions,” said Neilson.

At the beginning of the year the City used the term “Day Zero” to create awareness of the possibility that water could be rationed to 25 litres per person per day, collected from distribution points, if savings targets were not achieved.

It now hopes that further water savings and pressure reduction methods, combined with good winter rain and augmentation projects, will see “Day Zero” avoided.