Taxonomy term

At first glance, a visitor to Cape Town might not notice the extent of the parched conditions — people still go about their business, amid the same kind of hustle and bustle you would find in other major cities. But looking closer, there are signs that something is not right. People standing in buckets to conserve water during showers is one such sign, and bottled water flying off grocery store shelves is another.

The city of Cape Town, South Africa, is bone dry. In 2017, after two straight years of drought, a third drought year offered more of the same.. This past January, city leaders announced that they would shut off the taps to the municipal water supply in April because that was when “Day Zero” — the day when the water supply would run dry — was predicted to occur. Day Zero has since been pushed back to sometime in 2019, but, for 4 million Capetonians, living under the specter of a day without water is the new normal, and signs of that reality litter the city. Sometimes literally.

The treaty establishing a global, uniform system of measurement was signed on May 20, 1875. Today, we honor that achievement by celebrating World Metrology Day on May 20.

Doug Prose has co-produced documentaries showcasing Earth and the geosciences with his partner and wife, Diane LaMacchia, through their nonprofit Earth Images Foundation since 1992. Their latest documentary, “The Himalaya Connection,” began airing on PBS stations in April. Prose has previously written and blogged for EARTH about the pair’s experience shooting and preparing “Connection,” which involved six separate trips to Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Mongolia and Nepal from 2011 to 2016. They recently traveled back to the region for their next project.