Permanent project revision

Day Zero: Cape Town's Drought Demand Management

Revision 2026-08-12-evidence-baseline · effective 2026-07-26

Superseded. A later revision exists: 2026-08-20-source-dates-b2 →

unreviewed

Created the first structured Evidence Passport with 1 claim and 10 source dossiers.

sha256:d0686315f82209121cc17951a6c8aa7e1f6bd8978610cb63c4ad4731b66fd1ac

All revisions → Current entity page →

Change set

add /evidencePassport — Added claim-level evidence mapping and source dossiers.
add /revisionHistory — Established a permanent, hash-addressed baseline revision.

1: of 1 claims mapped
10: source dossiers
0: publication dates recorded
1: archives linked
0: exact locators
0: content captures hashed

Claims, one by one

The text below is copied verbatim from the published record. Each claim names the source dossiers that carry it; caveats stay attached to the claim they qualify.

Claim 1 clm-97a75298e674e471 quantitative

Savelli et al. in Nature Sustainability (2023) found that on 2020 census data the elite and upper-middle-income 13.7% of the population used 51% of Cape Town's household water

Published field: impact · verbatim
Mapping: mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says: The peer-reviewed analysis rests on 2020 census data for Cape Town's household consumption.
Caveat: No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

Savelli, Mazzoleni, Di Baldassarre, Cloke & Rusca — Urban water crises driven by elites' unsustainable consumption, Nature Sustainability 6, 929-940 (2023), peer-reviewed

Source dossiers and revision state

This layer records what is known about each source, what is still missing, and the exact snapshot this page is rendering. A missing date, archive or hash stays visible as missing.

unreviewed Revision 2026-08-12-evidence-baseline effective 2026-07-26 · created 2026-08-12

Awaiting operator and domain-expert review; no human review is implied by publication of this baseline.

sha256:d0686315f82209121cc17951a6c8aa7e1f6bd8978610cb63c4ad4731b66fd1ac

Revision history → Permanent version link → Machine-readable record → Evidence Constitution →

1: of 1 claims mapped
10: source dossiers
0: publication dates recorded
1: archives linked
0: exact locators
0: content captures hashed

Governance facts carried by the record

Operator: City of Cape Town — Water and Sanitation Directorate
Actor types: utility
Funding model: public
Funding description: Not recorded
Cost: Not recorded
Ownership: Not recorded
Decision rights: Not recorded
Exit conditions: Not recorded

10 source dossiers

GroundUp — How Cape Town more than halved its water usage (independent press) groundup.org.za · background

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID: src-8bdca9a93bfb4ab5
Publisher: Name not classified · groundup.org.za
Type / language: web-page · language not classified
Published: Not recorded
Updated: Not recorded
Source last checked: No source-level check date
Record last verified: 2026-07-26
Dossier created: 2026-08-12
Retrieved copy: No local capture recorded
Archive: No archived copy linked
Content hash: No captured content hash
Locator: Open the recorded source note
Load-bearing operational figures, sourced to city data: peak 1.2 billion litres daily in February 2015; low of 511 million litres daily on 12 March 2018; 450-million target; roughly 250,000 water management devices installed by March 2018 out of 1.26 million households, 64% of them in indigent areas; Level 6B restrictions from 1 February 2018 with penalties above 6,000 litres per month. Also carries Prof Neil Armitage crediting long-run pressure reduction. Fetched successfully 26 Jul 2026.
Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked: Background source; no baseline claim points here

Frontiers in Water — Drought, water management, and social equity: Analyzing Cape Town's water crisis (2022, peer-reviewed) frontiersin.org · background

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID: src-762472f49cfecd03
Publisher: Name not classified · frontiersin.org
Type / language: web-page · language not classified
Published: Not recorded
Updated: Not recorded
Source last checked: No source-level check date
Record last verified: 2026-07-26
Dossier created: 2026-08-12
Retrieved copy: No local capture recorded
Archive: No archived copy linked
Content hash: No captured content hash
Locator: Open the recorded source note
The attribution question, answered independently of the city. Verified sentence-level: restrictions ranked highest for encouraging household saving, the Day Zero campaign highest for awareness; consumption changed more through campaigns and restrictions than through tariff increases, which the paper calls both ineffective and unequitable; the lowest tariff bracket rose 600% in February 2018; 64% of water management devices went to poor communities rather than high-consumption homes. Fetched successfully 26 Jul 2026.
Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked: Background source; no baseline claim points here

Savelli, Mazzoleni, Di Baldassarre, Cloke & Rusca — Urban water crises driven by elites' unsustainable consumption, Nature Sustainability 6, 929-940 (2023), peer-reviewed centaur.reading.ac.uk · 1 linked claim

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID: src-f472e955088221cf
Publisher: Name not classified · centaur.reading.ac.uk
Type / language: web-page · language not classified
Published: Not recorded
Updated: Not recorded
Source last checked: No source-level check date
Record last verified: 2026-07-26
Dossier created: 2026-08-12
Retrieved copy: No local capture recorded
Archive: Open archived copy ↗ · 2026-05-19
Content hash: No captured content hash
Locator: Open the recorded source note
The equity spine: on 2020 census data the elite and upper-middle-income 13.7% of Cape Town's population use 51% of household water. FETCH FAILURE FLAGGED — nature.com 303-redirects to an authentication endpoint and the CentAUR full-text PDF is behind an Anubis challenge; the figure is corroborated by two independent renderings of the paper's own wording. A second figure for the lower-income and informal share is deliberately NOT used: reports of the paper disagree (29.2% versus 23.7%).
Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked: clm-97a75298e674e471

Environment for Development — 'Water Map' helps Cape Town through last days of drought emergency efdinitiative.org · background

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID: src-48ebe64cb2a0af58
Publisher: Name not classified · efdinitiative.org
Type / language: web-page · language not classified
Published: Not recorded
Updated: Not recorded
Source last checked: No source-level check date
Record last verified: 2026-07-26
Dossier created: 2026-08-12
Retrieved copy: No local capture recorded
Archive: No archived copy linked
Content hash: No captured content hash
Locator: Open the recorded source note
The Water Map's mechanics and, more importantly, its evidential limit. Live 15 January 2018; light green dot for free-standing homes under 6 kl a month, dark green for 6 to 10.5 kl. States the city prioritised rollout speed over rigorously tracking behavioural response, so no causal estimate of the map's effect exists. UCT's Environmental Policy Research Unit under Prof Martine Visser co-designed it. Fetched successfully 26 Jul 2026.
Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked: Background source; no baseline claim points here

David W. Olivier (University of the Witwatersrand), The Conversation — Cape Town's map of water usage has residents seeing red (Jan 2018) theconversation.com · background

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID: src-5ad914f86484c4f6
Publisher: Name not classified · theconversation.com
Type / language: web-page · language not classified
Published: Not recorded
Updated: Not recorded
Source last checked: No source-level check date
Record last verified: 2026-07-26
Dossier created: 2026-08-12
Retrieved copy: No local capture recorded
Archive: No archived copy linked
Content hash: No captured content hash
Locator: Open the recorded source note
The criticism side of the Water Map, attributed rather than adjudicated: privacy objections, the risk that strong social norms create an 'us' and 'them', and the mayor's own acknowledgement that properties may have legitimate reasons for exceeding the limit. Confirms an earlier red-dot design for over-users was dropped before launch. Fetched successfully 26 Jul 2026.
Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked: Background source; no baseline claim points here

Geordin Hill-Lewis (Executive Mayor of Cape Town), Brookings — Cape Town: Lessons from managing water scarcity (Mar 2023) brookings.edu · background

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID: src-57ca4b569209ec49
Publisher: Name not classified · brookings.edu
Type / language: web-page · language not classified
Published: Not recorded
Updated: Not recorded
Source last checked: No source-level check date
Record last verified: 2026-07-26
Dossier created: 2026-08-12
Retrieved copy: No local capture recorded
Archive: No archived copy linked
Content hash: No captured content hash
Locator: Open the recorded source note
Source of the pressure-management figure: savings of 70 million litres per day at the peak of the 2018 drought, across 170 zones. Written by the sitting mayor, so treated as the city's own claim, not independent evaluation. Fetched successfully 26 Jul 2026.
Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked: Background source; no baseline claim points here

GroundUp — Water curbs: a tale of rich and poor (independent press) groundup.org.za · background

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID: src-31f21cb97d1e66fb
Publisher: Name not classified · groundup.org.za
Type / language: web-page · language not classified
Published: Not recorded
Updated: Not recorded
Source last checked: No source-level check date
Record last verified: 2026-07-26
Dossier created: 2026-08-12
Retrieved copy: No local capture recorded
Archive: No archived copy linked
Content hash: No captured content hash
Locator: Open the recorded source note
The independent examination of the device rollout that the entry needed. Environmental Monitoring Group researcher Thabo Lusithi: the rollout in poor communities was not transparent and those affected were not properly consulted; devices sat under opaque locked lids so residents could not read their own meters; faults left people without water for days. Also the three installation programmes (indigent leaks project, 2017 high-consumption programme, meter replacement) and the 350-litre daily free basic allocation. Councillor Xanthea Limberg quoted defending the programme. Fetched successfully 26 Jul 2026.
Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked: Background source; no baseline claim points here

AllAfrica — Cape Town's water use remains too high despite Day Zero lessons (Feb 2026) allafrica.com · background

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID: src-21fab9f110d37bab
Publisher: Name not classified · allafrica.com
Type / language: web-page · language not classified
Published: Not recorded
Updated: Not recorded
Source last checked: No source-level check date
Record last verified: 2026-07-26
Dossier created: 2026-08-12
Retrieved copy: No local capture recorded
Archive: No archived copy linked
Content hash: No captured content hash
Locator: Open the recorded source note
The currency check and the honest counterweight. About 1,056 million litres a day, 212 litres per person, against the city's own summer target of under 975 million; no restrictions imposed in 2023 on comparable demand; the weekly dashboard and its data-driven risk model still updated at 2pm every Monday; dam storage fell near 13% in 2018. Fetched successfully 26 Jul 2026.
Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked: Background source; no baseline claim points here

City of Cape Town — Weekly Water Dashboard (authority) resource.capetown.gov.za · background

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID: src-e916fc24962a5e0c
Publisher: Name not classified · resource.capetown.gov.za
Type / language: pdf · language not classified
Published: Not recorded
Updated: Not recorded
Source last checked: No source-level check date
Record last verified: 2026-07-26
Dossier created: 2026-08-12
Retrieved copy: No local capture recorded
Archive: No archived copy linked
Content hash: No captured content hash
Locator: Open the recorded source note
Proof the dashboard outlived the emergency: the file retrieved on 26 Jul 2026 is a five-page PDF internally dated 22 July 2026. PARTIAL FETCH FAILURE FLAGGED — the PDF's text could not be machine-parsed by our tooling, so no dam-level or consumption number is taken from it; it is cited only for the dashboard's continued weekly publication.
Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked: Background source; no baseline claim points here

Bruhl & Visser (2021) — The Cape Town drought: a study of the combined effectiveness of measures implemented to prevent Day Zero sciencedirect.com · background

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID: src-e901c92a0d2a3476
Publisher: Name not classified · sciencedirect.com
Type / language: web-page · language not classified
Published: Not recorded
Updated: Not recorded
Source last checked: No source-level check date
Record last verified: 2026-07-26
Dossier created: 2026-08-12
Retrieved copy: No local capture recorded
Archive: No archived copy linked
Content hash: No captured content hash
Locator: Open the recorded source note
Listed for the editor's awareness as the most on-point attribution study. FETCH FAILURE FLAGGED — HTTP 403 on ScienceDirect and again on the ResearchGate record. NO figure from this paper is used anywhere in the entry; its widely quoted monthly reduction percentages were struck rather than taken from search snippets.
Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked: Background source; no baseline claim points here

Known limits of this passport

Publisher names and source languages have not yet been classified; domains are recorded without guessing.
Existing source notes are descriptive locators, not page- or paragraph-exact citations.
A missing archive, publication date or content hash is shown as null rather than inferred.
The project-level evidence grade ranks the strongest source in the entry; it is not a truth score for every claim.