South Africa: Water and Sanitation on water storage in Northern Cape

The weekly state of reservoirs report of the Department of Water and Sanitation indicates a week on week decline in water storage in the Northern Cape. This is expected, says spokesperson for the Department of Water and Sanitation Mr. Sputnik Ratau.

“The Department of Water and Sanitation is closely monitoring water levels and what we are seeing now as we go into the drier winter season, is that the weekly storage capacity of dams continues to decline, though not significantly so. The Department of Water and Sanitation urges all citizenry, industry, municipalities and all water services authorities to implement water use efficiency methods.”

The Department of Water and Sanitations’ Status of Water Reservoirs report, indicates that the Full Capacity Supply (FSC) of the Northern Cape is this week at 107.4% full. The Vanderkloof Dam which borders the Free State and Northern Cape is at 100.2% with the Orange River system at an average of 99.9%.

The other dams and weirs are per below:

Vaalharts is at 80.6%,
Spitskop in the Harts River 102.6%,
Douglas Storage Weir 116.8%
Boegoeberg 184% and the Karee Dam, which is the only storage dam in the Northern Cape is a meagre 9.9%.

Take note that the Karee Dam is the only storage dam in the Northern Cape, the others are water balancing dams designed to act as a multi-purpose facilities. Commonly, these balancing dams or storage weirs serve as distribution points from where water is diverted into pipelines, canals or power generating turbines or pump stations.

These are the metres in height at some of the gauging stations in the Northern Cape: Marksdrift is at a height of 1.464 metres,

Katlani which is just below the Vaal and Orange River confluence is at 2.543metres,

At the Prieska gauging station, the Orange River system is at a height of 2.147 metres,

Blouputs just below the Augrabies Waterfalls is currently at 1.722 metres

Water levels in the Vaal and Orange River Systems will differ depending on the width and depth of the particular river.