Sustainable urban water management in Cape Town, South Africa: is it a pipe dream?

The City of Cape Town (South Africa) faces numerous challenges in respect of water supply, drainage and sanitation services. It is hypothesised that the potential for long term sustainability in urban water systems can be established through the application of a five component sustainability index. This paper describes the development of such an index, the “Sustainability Index for Integrated Urban Water Management” (SIUWM), for specific application to southern African cities. It reviews the results from initial testing of the index on Cape Town, discusses its usefulness in terms of sustainability assessment, and provides a way forward for continuation of the research. It concludes that, by drawing on the numerous connections that link the different aspects of urban water management, the SIUWM is able to highlight several critical areas of “unsustainability” in the City and shows that sustainability will remain a pipe dream if these challenges are not addressed systematically and urgently.