Technology

Watering hole: In 1870, the growth of Cape Town led to water shortages. The Woodhead Reservoir on Table Mountain was built in 1897.

If you live in Cape Town and there’s a burst pipe or wastewater is backing up in your area, there’s a good chance that Melissa de Sousa Alves will know about it. As head of technical services at the Reticulation Branch, she manages the control room at the city’s Technical Dispatch Centre in Belville, which includes monitoring system performance, identifying field events, monitoring customer alerts, and notifying and directing the appropriate operational teams.

Here, a team of around 20 city workers track the real-time performance of critical system components that distribute water to consumers and collect wastewater and sewage from properties. They do this using sensors and remote terminal units – rugged devices that serve as field computers – and telemetry.