Cape Town combats water scarcity with invasive tree removal and shutdowns

Cape Town is addressing its long‑standing water vulnerability by removing invasive pine and eucalyptus trees that consume far more water than native fynbos. The Nature Conservancy and the Greater Cape Town Water Fund report that more than 101,000 acres have been cleared, adding roughly 9.5 billion gallons of water each year—equivalent to about two months of the city’s supply—at a fraction of the cost of desalination or new groundwater projects. Controlled burns and manual treatments are used to access difficult terrain and to promote native vegetation regeneration.

In parallel, the City of Cape Town has scheduled a series of water‑supply shutdowns for maintenance and upgrades. Starting on 27 July, a 14‑hour outage will affect Kramat, Macassar Beach and Sandvlei for a faulty valve replacement. The Blackheath Water Treatment Plant will be offline from 28 July to 29 July for compressor commissioning and valve work, impacting supplies to the Cape Winelands and parts of Kuils River. Additional bulk‑water pipeline works will cause disruptions across multiple suburbs from 31 July to 1 August, with reduced pressure expected city‑wide.