Residents in Bogota, Colombia’s largest city, won a highly anticipated probation from a long-term water rationing Friday, with authorities announcing that the cuts caused by a tough climate will end.
Over the course of 12 months, the capital’s 8 million residents faced 24 hours of water every nine days as the city tried to raise the lower levels of reservoirs.
Bogota, the Andes, receives more rainfall every year compared to London. But the El Nino drought and increasingly extreme cycles of Amazon deforestation have caused losses to reserves.
Mayor Carlos Fernando Galan announced that restrictions will be lifted from Saturday.
“This is the most complex crisis the city faces,” he said, acknowledging a significant impact on “the quality of life of Bogota residents.”
It has become a regular feature of Bogota’s life, allowing containers to be prepared and cluttered in the evening to store the next day’s water for cooking or bathing.
Briceida Torres had to fill the bucket and carry it for a chore. “Obviously, this is inconvenient,” she told AFP.
Car wash owner Benjamin Nunez Fletcher said he learned to use “rain water and filters… to keep the business running.”
These restrictions have been estimated to reduce the average water use in cities by more than 8% – from 17.7 cubic meters per second to 16.2.
Despite climate change exacerbating flooding in cities, Andres Torres, director of the Water School of Javeriana University of Bogota, said cuts were like an X-ray that exposed poor resource management over the years.
“They punished the population because they didn’t do what they wanted,” he said.
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