JOHANNESBURG, 22 May 2007 (IRIN) - The drought-stricken municipality of South Africa's coastal city, Cape Town, is forging ahead with a plan to fight the effects of climate change, which could prove a blueprint for other urban centres.

Cape Town and its suburbs have been identified by the South African government's Department of Water Affairs and Forestry as the first major urban region in the country where the demand for water is expected to exceed supply, according to 'Developing a Municipal Adaptation Plan (MAP) for climate change: the city of Cape Town,' a framework endorsed by the municipality.

The city has been forced to ration water during summers for the past few years.

The South African Country Study on Climate Change, carried out in the late 1990's, identified the Northern and Western Cape provinces, where Cape Town is located, as being most at risk from projected climate change-induced warming and rainfall change. Western Cape is likely to become warmer and drier, according to the projections.

Cape Town's framework for the climate change plan suggests steps that most residents could live with. Pierre Mukheibir and Gina Ziervogel, both researchers at the University of Cape Town, who authored the framework have recommended the municipality provide incentives in the form of rebates to taxpayers and businesses to install rainwater tanks, re-use their grey water and install low-flush toilets.

"We hope that the framework will serve as a blueprint for other municipalities", said Mukheibir.

An increasing demand has also seen the city battle with a number of power outages in the past three years. Until last year, the power cuts reportedly cost Cape Town businesses in Cape Town at least US $81 million in lost revenue.

Like California in the United States, the Cape Town municipality has been pioneering green policies in South Africa. Last year it launched a 10 point energy plan, which intends to ensure that 10 percent of the city's households install solar water heaters by 2020. The city has already started buying some of its electricity generated from wind energy at the Darling Wind Farm on the Cape West Coast, said Shirene Rosenberg, manager resource conservation at the municipality. The city is also contemplating the introduction of cleaner fossil fuels such as natural gas.

The city already conserves water by re-using nine percent of its treated effluent, according to the researchers. "There should be incentives to encourage industries and other wet-processing systems to recycle their wastewater," said the framework and suggested installation of rainwater tanks in homes and commercial buildings for use in gardens, swimming pools and sewage.

But the city's grand plans seems to have hit a speed bump of sorts. Municipalities do not have a constitutional mandate to put such plans into place, making it difficult for them to establish legal grounds to source funding either from its taxpayers or the national government, explained Rosenberg. "This is bound to affect other municipalities who consider similar plans".

However, while the municipality seeks clarity, it will press ahead with the plan, she added. The city is already investigating the feasibility of offering water conservation-linked tax rebates.

South Africa's carbon foot print is the largest on the continent and the country features among the top 15 greenhouse gas emitters in the world. South Africa has made a committment to reduce the percentage of coal in its energy mix by 10 percent by 2012. More than 91 percent of the country's electricity is generated from coal, according to the University of Cape Town-based Energy Research Centre. But the government has argued that most of its coal-fired power plants still have a life span of 20 years or more.

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