Cape Agulhas Municipality’s Transition Towards a Smart City 2.0

The Cape Agulhas Municipality (CAM) has implemented a phased smart water management system to replace manual monitoring of its groundwater sources. By deploying a LoRaWAN IoT network and digitising infrastructure in a pilot town, Suiderstrand, the municipality has achieved significant reductions in operating costs, vehicle travel, and carbon emissions. The project aims to provide a real-time holistic view of the water network to ensure the sustainable management of aquifers and improve service delivery efficiency.

• The municipality transitioned from manual monitoring, which required trips up to 50km to borehole sites, to a smart system using a municipal-wide Internet of Things (IoT) network based on LoRaWAN technology.
• The smart system has led to a forecast return on investment (ROI) of 32% over three years, projected to increase to 103% over five years, with a project payback period of 24 months on an initial capital outlay of R2.7m.
• Environmental and operational benefits include an 80% reduction in carbon emissions associated with bulk water monitoring, resulting from a reduction of 50,279km in annual travel and an 83% decrease in manual reading trips.
• The implementation of variable speed drives (VSDs) and real-time data allows the municipality to remotely control pumps and monitor night-time flows to proactively identify potential infrastructure failures.
• Success factors for the project included the use of Suiderstrand as a pilot town to rectify design snags, eight months of inclusive stakeholder engagement, and a detailed tender process to define requirements.

APA

Roselt, M. (2020). Cape Agulhas Municipality’s Transition Towards a Smart City 2.0. GreenCape. https://greencape.co.za/assets/CAPE_AGULHAS_CASE_STUDY_28_10_21.pdf

Chicago

Roselt, Marielle. Cape Agulhas Municipality’s Transition Towards a Smart City 2.0. GreenCape, 2020. https://greencape.co.za/assets/CAPE_AGULHAS_CASE_STUDY_28_10_21.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Roselt |first1=Marielle |title=Cape Agulhas Municipality’s Transition Towards a Smart City 2.0 |publisher=GreenCape |date=2020 |url=https://greencape.co.za/assets/CAPE_AGULHAS_CASE_STUDY_28_10_21.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{roselt2020cape, author = {Roselt, Marielle}, title = {{Cape Agulhas Municipality’s Transition Towards a Smart City 2.0}}, institution = {GreenCape}, year = {2020}, url = {https://greencape.co.za/assets/CAPE_AGULHAS_CASE_STUDY_28_10_21.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }