Water scarcity and poverty: The lasting impact of a maintenance campaign at South African schools across the affluence divide

Abstract

Water features prominently in discussions on sustainability. The recent Cape Town ‘Day Zero’ drought heightened fears about global cities running dry as the climate changes. During that crisis a campaign was launched to save water at schools, consisting of a basic maintenance campaign and a behavioural campaign. The former was limited to easy fixes, and the latter comprised an information campaign and an information and competition campaign. The impacts of these were assessed immediately after the interventions. This paper revisits the maintenance results by assessing the difference in responses according to affluence levels of the schools, and by evaluating the impacts one year after the campaigns. We find that the poorer schools were not able to sustain the maintenance gains, especially at the primary schools. HIGHLIGHTS Assessed impact of a maintenance campaign at Cape Town schools during ‘Day Zero’ drought.; Short- and long-term impact – a year later – are evaluated.; School affluence is evaluated as a factor in the effectiveness of the maintenance campaign.; Short-term impact was greater at poor schools, but gains diminished a year later.; Affluent schools benefitted from a lower base in the short term, and maintained gains better.;

Keywords

• school water system maintenance
• smart water meters
• socio-economic comparison
• water conservation