How Full Are Cape Town's Dams Today?
Combined storage
701,794 of 898,221 Ml
On the week
from 78.6% last week
Daily water use
145 litres per person
City status
Published by the City with this reading
“Rainfall since May 2026 has been lower than expected, and thus the dam levels have been increasing slower than expected. As rainfall patterns remain unpredictable, it is important to remain water wise and use water responsibly to sustain supply should the drier weather persist for the remainder of winter — as current seasonal forecasts are predicting.”
— City of Cape Town, Weekly Water Dashboard, 3 August 2026
Every dam, sized by what it holds
Column width is each dam's share of the system's 898,221 million litres. Height is how full it is. Theewaterskloof is wide because Theewaterskloof is the story.
Theewaterskloof
53%
Voëlvlei
18%
Berg River
14%
Wemmershoek
7%
Steenbras Lower
4%
Steenbras Upper
4%
| Dam | Capacity (Ml) | Share of system | This week | Last week | Last year | vs last year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Theewaterskloof | 480,188 | 53.5% | 78.2% | 78.9% | 79.9% | −1.7pp |
| Voëlvlei | 164,095 | 18.3% | 61.9% | 61.9% | 85.2% | −23.3pp |
| Berg River | 130,010 | 14.5% | 90.0% | 89.3% | 100.6% | −10.6pp |
| Wemmershoek | 58,644 | 6.5% | 99.3% | 100.0% | 84.0% | +15.3pp |
| Steenbras Lower | 33,517 | 3.7% | 53.9% | 55.7% | 77.2% | −23.3pp |
| Steenbras Upper | 31,767 | 3.5% | 99.2% | 100.2% | 101.6% | −2.4pp |
What this winter has and has not delivered
The system is at 78.1% and falling slightly week to week — down half a percentage point in the last week, in the middle of what should be the filling season.
The City's own dashboard is direct about why, and its water resource status currently reads Early Drought Caution: rainfall since May 2026 has been lower than expected, so the dams have been rising more slowly than expected, and the seasonal forecasts point to drier weather for the rest of winter.
The year-on-year comparison sharpens it. The same week in 2025 the system was at 84.8%; in 2024 and 2023 it was above 100%, spilling. Two of the last four winters ended with the dams full. This one is not going to.
The per-dam picture is uneven in a way the combined number hides. Wemmershoek and Steenbras Upper are essentially full. Berg River is at 90%. But Voëlvlei sits at 61.9% against 85.2% this time last year, and Voëlvlei is the second-largest dam in the system. It is fed by winter diversions from the Berg and Klein Berg rivers rather than by a large catchment of its own, which makes it the most sensitive of the six to a weak rainfall season — and it has not moved at all in the past week.
The same week, five years running
Comparing this week against last month would only show the winter filling season doing what winter does. Against the same week in earlier years, the picture is clearer.
- 202275.6%
- 2023100.9%
- 2024100.6%
- 202584.8%
- 202678.1%
Storage in the week of 3 August 2026, as published by the City alongside this week's reading. Figures above 100% are dams spilling.
Why a percentage runs this city
Cape Town watches its dam level the way other cities watch a currency. It is not a hobby: in early 2018 this number nearly ran out.
The six dams on this page make up the Western Cape Water Supply System, and together they hold 898,221 million litres when full — roughly 898 billion litres. Almost everything that comes out of a tap in Cape Town, and a good deal of what irrigates the Boland, comes out of them. There is no meaningful alternative supply to fall back on if they empty, which is why the City publishes a reading every week and why the whole city can tell you roughly what it is.
The figure is seasonal in a way that matters for reading it. Cape Town has a Mediterranean climate: it rains in winter and it does not rain in summer. So the dams fill from roughly May to September and draw down from October to April. A number in August means something completely different from the same number in February — in August you are looking at the peak the city has to live on until next winter.
Why Steenbras Lower looks half empty
Steenbras Lower reads 53.9% while Steenbras Upper reads 99.2%, and neither figure is about rain.
The two Steenbras dams are a pumped-storage scheme — the only large one owned and run by a South African city. When electricity demand peaks, water is released from the upper dam down through four turbines into the lower dam, generating up to 180 megawatts. Overnight, when demand and electricity prices fall, the same water is pumped back up. The pair is a battery that happens to be made of water.
So the gap between the two levels is an operational choice, not a shortage, and Steenbras Lower being drawn down is often a sign the scheme is doing its job. Together the two dams are 65,284 million litres of the system's 898,221 — about 7% — so their swings barely move the combined figure.
That scheme is also why Cape Town has historically been able to run a stage below the national load-shedding level. Water and electricity are the same story here more often than people expect.
Day Zero, and what actually changed
In 2017 and 2018, after three failed rainy seasons, the City set out a plan for the day the taps would be turned off. It named the trigger: 13.5% of dam storage. Below that, reticulated supply to most of the city would stop and residents would queue at roughly two hundred collection points for 25 litres a day each. The date moved through the summer of 2018 — April, then May, then indefinitely — as the numbers changed.
Day Zero never arrived, and the reason is worth being precise about, because it is usually told as a rain story. Rain helped: the 2018 winter delivered close to average rainfall for the first time in four years. But the taps stayed on because consumption collapsed first. Under Level 6B restrictions the city cut usage to roughly half of pre-drought levels — a reduction on a scale few cities have ever achieved without the supply physically failing. Tariffs were restructured, pressure was reduced across the network, leaks were chased, and a public campaign made 50 litres a person a day a social norm rather than a rule.
Some of that stuck. Average consumption in Cape Town today runs at about 145 litres per person per day, well below the roughly 200 litres common before the drought, and the City has since added groundwater and reuse capacity that did not exist in 2018.
What has not changed is the underlying exposure. The system is still six dams, still filled by winter rain, still with no large alternative source. That is why 78.1% in August is a number worth watching rather than a number to relax about.
What the level actually triggers
A common misreading is that a particular percentage automatically switches on restrictions. It does not work that way, and it is worth being clear about what we do and do not know.
The City sets water restriction levels through a decision by the responsible authorities, informed by dam storage, the time of year, projected demand and the rainfall outlook — not by a published percentage threshold that flips automatically. The same 60% level means something very different in October, when the dams have a full summer of drawdown ahead, from what it means in May, when the rains are about to start.
The one hard number the City has published historically is the 13.5% Day Zero trigger from the 2018 crisis, which was a plan for supply failure rather than a restriction tier.
We are not going to invent a threshold table to fill the space. What this page gives you instead is the current level, how it compares to the same week in earlier years, the City's own published resource status — currently Early Drought Caution — and the note the City attaches to it. When the City publishes a restriction change, it will appear here with its date and its source.
Common questions
How full are Cape Town's dams right now?
The Western Cape Water Supply System was at 78.1% of storage in the City's reading of 3 August 2026 — 701,794 million litres of a possible 898,221. That is down 0.5 percentage points on the previous week and down from 84.8% at the same point last year.
Which dams supply Cape Town?
Six: Theewaterskloof, Voëlvlei, Berg River, Wemmershoek, Steenbras Lower and Steenbras Upper. Theewaterskloof alone accounts for about 53% of total system capacity, which is why the combined figure tracks it closely.
Is Cape Town heading for another Day Zero?
The City's published water resource status is Early Drought Caution, and it notes that rainfall since May 2026 has been below expectations with drier weather forecast for the rest of winter. That is a caution, not a crisis: the system is at 78.1% at the end of the filling season, against roughly a fifth of capacity at the depth of the 2018 drought. We report the level and the City's own status, and we do not forecast.
Why is Steenbras Lower so much emptier than Steenbras Upper?
Because they are a pumped-storage electricity scheme, not just reservoirs. Water runs from the upper dam through turbines into the lower dam to generate power at peak demand, and is pumped back up overnight. The gap between them reflects electricity operations rather than water shortage.
How much water does Cape Town use?
About 846 million litres a day across the supply area, which includes water provided to Stellenbosch and Drakenstein. Average use within Cape Town works out at roughly 145 litres per person per day — still well below pre-drought levels of around 200.
How often is this updated?
Weekly. The City publishes its Weekly Water Dashboard each week, and this page follows it. The reading date is shown at the top of the page and the stamp turns amber by itself if a week is missed.
Methodology and sources
Every dam figure on this page comes from the City of Cape Town's Weekly Water Dashboard, a PDF the City publishes each week with the reading for each major dam, the combined storage, the same week in each of the previous four years, total daily water use and average use per person.
That dashboard is the source we follow for this page. The City also publishes a daily dam level page, which is fresher by a day or two, but mixing the two would mean computing week-on-week changes across different documents with slightly different reading times. One source, one basis. Where the two disagree by a tenth of a percentage point, that is why.
Capacities are the City's published figures in million litres. Stored volumes shown per dam are that dam's capacity multiplied by its published percentage. Percentages above 100 are real — a dam can hold slightly more than nominal capacity while spilling — and are shown as published rather than clipped.
Readings are weekly, so this page is refreshed weekly. The age of the current reading is shown at the top of the page and on the freshness board, and goes amber by itself if a reading is missed.
- City of Cape Town Weekly Water Dashboard (PDF) — the source we follow, refreshed weekly
- Reading date 3 August 2026 · expected to refresh within 10 days
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What the water in them costs
The City's stepped tariff, the fixed charge a court sent back to meter size, and a worked monthly bill.
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Every change we have logged
Each week's dam reading, each month's fuel adjustment, dated and sourced.
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