From 11 April 2024 the utility EAAB cut supply for 24 hours at a time to nine rotating zones across Bogotá and 11 neighbouring municipalities, after the Chingaza system — about 70% of the city's water — fell to roughly 16.5% of capacity, its lowest since the system opened in the mid-1980s. The city published reservoir levels and the zone calendar daily, but no decree set a reservoir threshold: the mayor and EAAB started, stretched and ended the cycles by judgement, and Decreto 334 of 28 September 2024 added use bans and fines without naming a percentage. The measurement that did bind automatically sat on the household meter — bills above 22 m³ a month drew a per-cubic-metre surcharge, applied to 24,977 households in the September 2024 billing, 59% of them in stratum 2. Rationing ended on 12 April 2025 after 34 cycles, with Chingaza back near 40%.
EAAB and city figures: average consumption fell from 17.72 m³/s before rationing to 16.24 m³/s, about 46.56 million m³ saved over the year; the 15 m³/s target was met in May 2024 (14.86 m³/s). Consumption rebounded to 17.07 m³/s between 12 and 30 April 2025, once the cuts stopped.
🎓 Lesson
Publishing a number every day is not the same as being bound by it. Bogotá's reservoir percentage informed a discretionary decision; the only reading that automatically produced a consequence was the household meter — and that consequence landed mostly on stratum 2.
Evidence🏛️ Official
Scale🗺️ Regional
Sources
↗ Alcaldía Mayor de Bogotá — one-year balance of the rationing (operator/city)Carries the load-bearing dates and numbers: start 11 Apr 2024, end 12 Apr 2025, 34 cycles; Bogotá plus Mosquera, La Calera, Chía, Cajicá, Sopó, Gachancipá, Tocancipá, Soacha, Funza, Madrid and Cota; Chingaza 16.52% at the start and 39.98% at the end; consumption 17.72 → 16.24 m³/s; 46.56 million m³ saved. All self-reported. Fetched successfully 26 Jul 2026.
↗ Decreto 334 de 2024, Alcaldía Mayor de Bogotá (28 Sep 2024)The instrument check. Art. 1 bans potable water for washing façades, car parks and vehicles, garden irrigation and ornamental pools, with sanctions via Art. 35 num. 2 of Ley 1801 de 2016. It cites the alert status of Chuza and San Rafael but sets NO reservoir percentage that triggers or lifts rationing — the basis for saying the schedule was discretionary.
↗ Alcaldía Mayor de Bogotá — 24,977 households surcharged for excess consumptionSentence-level source for the household mechanism and the equity counterweight: 24,977 users in the September 2024 billing (23,233 Bogotá, 1,744 Soacha) for exceeding 44 m³ bimonthly; 12,998 (59%) stratum 2 and 7,212 (29%) stratum 3; roughly COP 3,484 per excess m³ in Bogotá; about COP 1,545 million collected, directed to the national environmental fund FONAM. The page cites CRA Resolución 943 de 2021 as the regulatory basis while press coverage cites CRA Resolución 039 de 2024 — the discrepancy is unresolved, so the entry names no resolution.
↗ El Tiempo — why Bogotá was divided into nine zonesSource for the nine-zone rotation. Some later coverage counts ten turns once neighbouring municipalities were scheduled separately; the entry states nine, the figure used at the outset.
↗ El Tiempo — Personería: losses reach 40%, EAAB 'historically inefficient' (Sep 2024)The oversight counterweight, from the city's own ombudsman on 18 Sep 2024 — mid-rationing: non-revenue water approaching 40% from leaks, illegal connections and commercial losses, despite more than COP 2.5 trillion spent over 20 years. The Personería's own page (personeriabogota.gov.co item 1254) returned HTTP 503 to automated fetches on 26 Jul 2026, so this is carried via press coverage of the same statement.
↗ Semana — Peñalosa attacks Galán over the halted Chingaza II worksThe drought-versus-deferred-investment dispute, named rather than adjudicated: the Chingaza II expansion did not advance, and a former mayor blames the current administration. Technical and commercial losses put at around 35% in the same coverage.
↗ EAAB (operator) — Centro de ControlThe measurement layer that makes this in scope: a control centre operating since 2006 that supervises and automatically operates the trunk network — reservoirs, treatment plants, tanks, control structures, pumping stations — tracking tank levels, pressure, flow and water quality.
↗ Infobae — EAAB rules out new rationing under El Niño (8 Jul 2026)Currency check for the completed status: no rationing has returned. Chingaza stood at 42.88% on 9 Apr 2026 and above 67% by July 2026, with around 120 million m³ stored — some 73 million more than in April 2024.
📎 Cite this project
1001 Smart Cities (2026). “Bogotá's 2024–25 Rotating Water Rationing” — Bogotá, Colombia. The Smart City Atlas. https://1001smartcities.org/projects/bogota-water-rationing/ (last verified 2026-07-26). Data: CC BY 4.0.
The underlying data is free to reuse with attribution — see the open data page.
