I know we’re going on about the water crisis, but I think we’re all starting to finally realise just what lies ahead.

Over the last few days we have shown you the City of Cape Town’s water usage tool, which has proven rather divisive amongst residents, and then yesterday’s bombshell over the new 50 litre per person daily limit arrived like a kick to the groin.

In case you’re wondering how far 50 litres a day actually goes, you’ll find a handy video here.

Right, so what’s up with this Day Zero site then? It’s pretty much your one-stop shop to see where we’re at with the crisis, and this is what greets you when you head over:

Rather ominous, but it does provide us with plenty of handy info.

Dam levels – all of the stats below are correct as of Monday, January 15, and are updated weekly:

So only 39% of residents were meeting the 87 litres per day limit, and you wonder why we need to drop to 50 litres.

If you pop over to the City’s dam levels page you’ll find that as of yesterday we are even worse off:

I find this bit below particularly interesting, which offers us insight into how the various projects are coming along:

I should mention that red means behind schedule, blue means on schedule and (the non-existent) green means ahead of schedule.

There are also projects that are in the planning stages, with an update on how far on the planning process is:

I know that text in the image above isn’t easy to read, so you can pop over here and scroll to the bottom to cut your eyes some slack.

One more thing that’s worth taking a look at – the WWF’s tips on how to prepare for Day Zero. Every household should be having a chat about the new water restrictions, and you’ll find a few angles you might not have considered before covered in that link.

Yoh – this is getting very real very quickly.

[sources:coct&wwf]