A neighbours' board of when piped water last ran, area by area — because LWSC publishes no schedule and nothing else says whether today's turn happened.
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From Town Tools. For the current version, visit https://www.towntools.org/lusaka-lusaka-province-zm/has-the-water-come
Neighbours are starting to report when water comes — tap to add yours.
Lusaka is a capital with no river. About 78 per cent of its water is pumped up out of the limestone underneath the city, through forty municipal wells, and the network produces roughly 330 million litres a day against a demand of about 480 million. That gap is why supply is rationed rather than continuous — and why the answer to “when will the water come” is different in Kabulonga and in Kanyama.
Nothing published says whether today's turn actually happened where you live. So this is a board of what neighbours say. Pick your area, say when the water last ran there, and see what other people in your area have said. If your supply is a kiosk or a standpipe rather than a pipe into the yard, a report about that is just as useful.
Reading it is free and needs no account. Saying something needs you to be signed in, so that one person is one voice.
One thing to be clear about: this board reaches your neighbours. Nobody at LWSC reads it. If your water has failed, ring or message LWSC — the numbers are at the foot of this page — and then, if you like, tell the street here.
What is actually published about the schedule
Almost nothing, and that is the reason this page exists.
LWSC began a formal rationing programme on 12 May 2024. It gave two reasons at the time: the regional drought had lowered the groundwater it pumps from, and ZESCO's load shedding was cutting the hours its pumps could run at all. Load shedding ended in 2026. The rationing did not.
Separately, and over a longer period, LWSC has been converting areas from intermittent supply to continuous supply, one area at a time. Both things are true at once, which is why two neighbours a few kilometres apart can have completely different experiences of the same utility.
What is not published anywhere we can find is the part you would actually use: which areas are on which turn today. So this board does not tell you whether your area is late. It tells you how long it has been, and lets you compare that with everywhere else.
Areas converted to continuous supply
Water all the timeLWSC has been doing this area by area. Which areas are finished is not published.
Everywhere else
Rationed — the turn is not publishedThe rationing programme started on 12 May 2024 and has not been withdrawn.
Tap your area to say when piped water last ran there.
No published supply interval
35 areas
Nobody publishes how often these areas are meant to get water, so this board can say how long it has been since neighbours last saw it and not whether that is late. The days below are a count, not a verdict.
Avondale
No reports yet
Bauleni
No reports yet
Chainda
No reports yet
Chaisa
No reports yet
Chalala
No reports yet
How this board works
Each area shows the middle date of what neighbours have reported, not the newest one — so a single mistaken or mischievous report can’t move it. Reports count for 21 days and then drop off. Where a published turn exists, the colour is measured against that area’s own: within it reads green, up to twice it amber, longer than that red. Where none is published there is no colour, because there is nothing honest to measure against. Nothing here says water is due — only how long neighbours say it has been.
Where Lusaka's water comes from
A full reservoir is not water in your pipe. What is in the tank and what reaches an area are two different questions: pumps fail, mains burst, and a turn can be missed with storage brim-full. This section is background. The board above is the question this page is about.
There is no dam above this city and no river through it. Lusaka sits on Lusaka Dolomite — karst limestone, close to the surface — and drinks from it. About 78 per cent of supply is groundwater, drawn through around forty municipal wells, with the rest coming from the Kafue. On top of that there are more than three thousand private boreholes.
The arithmetic residents live with is roughly 330 million litres produced a day against about 480 million demanded. The regulator's most recent published sector report, for 2023, put LWSC's average supply at seventeen hours a day and falling, with 57 per cent of the water put into the network never reaching a paying customer, and it noted significant failures in chlorine residual and bacteriological testing.
And the aquifer being full is not the same as water in your pipe. Between the rock and the tap there are pumps, a power supply, pressure, and a network that loses more than half of what goes into it. Only the people on your street know whether it arrived.
17 hours of supply a day on average, and declining (NWASCO sector report, 2023)
Nothing said here reaches anyone who can open a valve or fix a pump. For that, tell Lusaka Water Supply and Sanitation Company (LWSC) — This is the utility that can send someone. LWSC also takes reports by SMS on +260 975 618618 and +260 950 948028, by email at customerservice@lwsc.com.zm, and through the “Report Leak” and “Submit Complaint” options in its own mobile app. The board on this page reaches your neighbours; these numbers reach the people who can open a valve or fix a pump. Both are worth doing.No supply, leaks and burst mains: +260 211 257579.
Everything on this board is what residents have said, not what LWSC has confirmed. It is a record of neighbours' experience — useful precisely because nothing official is published quickly enough to be useful — and it is not a schedule, not a promise, and never a statement that your water is due. If an area shows nothing, that means nobody has reported there recently, which is not the same as the water having come.