Bogota, Colombia
#00168
Case study of
#00182 Transparent emergency demand management: dashboards, escalating tariffs, pressure management and a communicated deadline
Implementer
City of Bogota and the metropolitan water utility
Timeline
Apr 11, 2024 – Apr 12, 2025
Location
Description
With the Chingaza reservoir system down to 16.5 percent capacity, metro Bogota (around 11 million people) ran a full year of rotational rationing from April 2024 to April 2025. The city was divided into nine rotating zones, each taking a 24-hour shutoff roughly every 9–10 days. A public dashboard tracked reservoir levels and savings, the mayor communicated daily, and fines applied to over-consumption. Burden was deliberately uniform across rich and poor zones. Rationing ended 12 April 2025 with reserves recovered after more than 46 million cubic meters were saved.
Metrics
2Lessons learned
- Uniform burden across rich and poor zones was credited as the key source of legitimacy for a full year of rationing—specifically, not exempting wealthier districts.
- A public dashboard combined with daily mayoral communication kept rotating 24-hour shutoffs orderly across 11 million people for a full year.
- Rotational rationing with a transparent exit condition (reservoir recovery) can bridge a multi-season crisis, but it manages scarcity rather than preventing it—requiring upstream reservoir and infrastructure investment to avoid recurrence.
Documented Jul 24, 2026