On Monday, Cape Town officials pushed back its "Day Zero" projection nearly a whole month— from April 16 to May 11, according to CNN. Day Zero is the name for the estimated day when the city will turn off residential taps, and residents will have to wait on checkpoint lines for water. Checkpoints will limit residents from using more than 25 liters of water per person.

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Despite a recent decline in agricultural water use, Cape Town is still running out of water. Helen Zille, former Cape Town mayor and current premier of South Africa's Western Cape province, wrote in the Daily Maverick, "Day Zero is almost unavoidable."

"Capetonians must continue reducing consuption if we are to avoid Day Zero," said Cape Town's executive deputy mayor, Alderman Ian Neilson, as reported by Reuters. "All Capetonians must therefore continue to use no more than 50 liters per person per day to help stretch our dwindling supplies."

(MORE: Cape Town, South Africa, is Running Out of Water)

TIME reported that Cape Town has seen three years of unprecidented drought, and when Day Zero approaches, the South African city will be the first major city in the world to run out of water. Day Zero is determined by the percentage of water in the city's dams. Once Cape Town dams reach 13.5 percent capacity, municipal water supplies will be shut off except for hospitals and other essential city services. 

The city plans to have armed guards monitor some 200 municipal water points throughout the city of four million residents.

"The question that dominates my waking hours now is: When Day Zero arrives, how do we make water accessible and prevent anarchy?" Zille wrote on  January 22.

Despite warnings of catastrophically low water and months of the city pressing voluntary restrictions, residents largely ignored the problem. In January, Cape Town made steeper restrictions, threatening fines and water-management meters for anyone violating restrictions.

Moving Day Zero to May gives the city some hope. Historically, the rainy season arrives in Cape Town by mid-May. But CNN reports that the past two years have included two of the driest years on record: 2015 and 2017. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that a significant drying trend will continue, and possibly reduce annual rainfall by up to 40 percent.

National Geographic reports that overdevelopment, population growth and climate change have created a problem between supply and demand when it comes to water, not only in Cape Town, but all over the world. The World Wildlife Fund estimates that by 2025, two-thirds of the world may suffer water shortages as climate change and wasteful water consumption make droughts more frequent.