Displaying items by tag: Southern Waters Consulting - Projects 2005

The objectives of the Pangani Basin Baseline Flow Assessment (FA) Study were to generate baseline data of the condition of the Pangani River system against which the impact of water-related decision-making can be monitored in future; enhance the understanding of the relationship between flow, the river and people among PBWO and MWLD staff; create an awareness of the links between flow and the trade-offs that need to be made in water allocation; develop simple tools to help guide flow management and water allocations in the Pangani Basin; build capacity that will enable PWBO to act as a nucleus of expertise for FA-related work in other areas; support the National Water Policy (NAWAPO_2002) and the National Environmental Management Act (2004).  The project included the design and operation of the Pangani Flows DSS, which was used to assess various (at this stage 18) scenarios related to water resource development and provide information on hydrological, sector allocations, impacts on rivers, wetlands, lakes and the estuary, social impacts related to those impacts and various economic (direct) indicators, specifically those related to HEP, agriculture and ecosystem services

Freshwater specialist and advisor: A Feasibility Study and Pilot Project into the viability of the TMG Aquifer for bulk water supply to Cape Town, more particularly the deep confined portions of the Peninsula Formation.  Duties included evaluation of proposed well-field sites, design of a monitoring programme to assess future possible impacts of abstraction from the TMG aquifer on rivers and wetlands in the area and review of the subsequent monitoring activities, which have been outsourced.  This project is likely to continue into the future, to encompass establishment of pilot well-field and adaptive management of large-scale water abstraction for supply to Cape Town.

Knowledge management, including:  Information and data management and process design for the Environmental Flow Assessments.  Including database design, population and presentation of results for Phases 2 and 3 of the MRC’s IBFM Programme. Also a review of Decision Support Systems/Models (DSS) designed to show the social, environmental and economic costs and benefits of various kinds of basin development.

Environmental flow specialist: A multidisciplinary team tasked with designing and implementing the operation rules for the Berg River Dam in Franschhoek.  The Berg River Dam is the first dam in South Africa where provision for the Ecological Reserve was included in feasibility, design and operations

Ecological Team Leader: The WRCS, which is required by the SA National Water Act (No. 36 of 1998), is a set of guidelines and procedures for determining the desired characteristics of a water resource, and is represented by a Management Class (MC). The MC outlines those attributes that the custodian (DWAF) and society require of different water resources. The WRCS is to be used in a consultative process to classify water resources to help facilitate a balance between protection and use of the nation’s water resources. The economic, social and ecological implications of choosing a MC will need to be established and communicated to all Interested and Affected Parties during the Classification Process.  The outcome of a Classification Process  using the WRCS is a target Health class for every significant water resource in a basin, plus a monitoring programme for evaluating future management of the basin.  The WRCS is currently undergoing the Gazetting Process for incorporation into South Africa’s water law.

Project Director:  The objectives of Contract LHDA 1237 were to ensure that LHDA’s biophysical monitoring programme was running smoothly, in that LHDA possessed the in-house capacity (i.e., in terms of data collection and analysis) to carry out all the tasks associated with IFR monitoring; data collection and analytical tasks were meeting the goals and objectives set out in the IFR Policy and Procedures and were providing information to: determine if the desired river conditions set out in the IFR Policy were being achieved; and if not; to provide information enable decisions to be made on appropriate action to be taken.

EF Facilitator and process designer:  An advocacy exercise using the DRIFT EF process for the Zambezi Delta involving interest groups instead of biophysical specialists with the main aim of assessing the implications of various release options from the hydropower facility at Cahorra Bassa Dam.

EF Team Leader and Advisor:  An assessment of the relationship between the current flow regime in the river and the EFR recommended by the Desktop Model was examined, and appropriate changes be made to the recommended flows.  The results of these analyses were incorporated into the systems modelling for planning purposes.  Thereafter a ToR for a Comprehensive (reactive) EF assessment for the Orange River and its estuary was compiled.

Author: Detailed manual for the biophysical components of the DRIFT method, including user-guides to the DRIFT database and DRIFT Hydrological software.

Trainer: EFR Training course, including field work, for international participants in Swaziland (Annually, 3 days).