Every day, some hero – often kitted out with a Go-Pro or some fancy camera – makes a little time to visit Theewaterskloof Dam and take photographs of what’s going on.

The best of the lot are soon shared to social media, giving the rest of us a chance to realise just how in the dwang we really are.

But moving away from the usual images focusing on tree skeletons and dry plains, The Verge shared a GIF put together by NASA’s Earth Observatory featuring images of Theewaterskloof Dam.

They were taken between 2014 and now, and snapped all the way from space.

This really hits home:

Bleak, hey?

The extent of the water in the reservoir is shown with blue, and non-water areas have been masked with grey in order to make it easier to distinguish how the reservoir has changed.

Then there’s this trio of images below, which show how the three successive dry years took a toll on Cape Town’s water system:

Voëlvlei, the second largest reservoir, has dropped to 18 percent of capacity. Some of the smaller reservoirs like the Berg River and Wemmershoek are still relatively full, but they store only a small fraction of the city’s water.

One of the largest reservoirs in the area—Brandvlei—does not supply water to Cape Town; its water is used by farmers for irrigation.

Interesting, hey?

The line chart below was also published. It details how water levels in the six key reservoirs have changed since 2013:

Though the reservoirs are replenished each winter as the rains arrive, the trend at almost all of them has been downward. The one exception is Upper Steenbras, which holds about 4 percent of the city’s water and has been kept full because it is also used to generate electricity during peak demand. Also, the city is likely drawing down the largest reservoirs first to minimize how much water is lost to evaporation.

Personally, I feel like NASA just told me way more about the Cape’s water supply than the City has.

Who feels like being a Day Zero hero?

[source:theverge]