The term “Day Zero”, once used and understood only in the water resource management space, has now secured itself in SA’s lexicon. It was first introduced a few years ago when the City of Cape Town was faced with the very real threat of running out of water.

Soon thereafter, the Nelson Mandela Bay metropolitan municipality in the Eastern Cape faced the same problem. Today, Day Zero, which refers to the critical point at which a city’s water supply is predicted to be nearly completely depleted, leaving taps dry and communities in crisis, is a reality across the entire country...