It Happened In São Paulo Too

As Cape Town faces Day Zero we look at how another city coped with its drought crisis

- Kirstin Buick

IT’S a statement that’s been making headlines across the globe for weeks: Cape Town could be the first major city in the world to run out of water.

Western Cape premier Helen Zille sent already panicked Mother City residents stockpiling water with new vigour when she declared in an article on Daily Maverick, “As things stand, the challenge exceeds anything a major city has had to face anywhere in the world since World War 2 or 9/11.” 

And yet . . . that’s not quite true. 

Just two years ago Brazilian megacity São Paulo was in dire straits.

The biggest city in the Western hemisphere was facing its greatest water crisis in more than 80 years – thanks to a devastating drought that plagued Brazil from 2014, hitting the southeast of the South American country hardest.

“We were on the brink,” is how Jerson Kelman, president of São Paulo’s state water facility (Sabesp), put it.

“I don’t know what would’ve happened if we’d lost control of the water supply for 22 million people.”

HOW BAD WAS IT? 

Really, really bad. The crisis was something residents in a country that’s been referred to as “the Saudi Arabia of water” could never have anticipated. Brazil accounts for 12 to 16% of the world’s fresh water, more than any other country on Earth.

But unfortunately for Paulistanos, as the city’s residents are called, this abundant water is in the Amazon River and rainforests in the north.

And because authorities were so woefully unprepared for the disaster, proper infrastructure wasn’t in place.

The megalitres of fresh water on the city’s doorstep couldn’t be harnessed.