The North West Province recently made its first strides in getting the RHP up and running. On the 13 September 1999, Stuart Mangold was privileged to accompany Dr Neels Kleynhans and Mr Dana Grobler of DWAF IWQS for a helicopter survey of three key rivers in the eastern region of the province. With good weather and the rivers being in the preferred winter low flow condition for taking video footage for habitat assessment, the Groot Marico, Heks and a large portion of the Elands Rivers were flown within a single day. Besides getting a bird’s eye view of the meanderings and flow of these rivers and landuse within the catchments, the aerial survey was also a reconnaissance of possible monitoring and reference fish and SASS sites.

The Groot Marico was seen to have good flow for much of it sojourn to the Limpopo, despite largescale irrigation (central pivot systems as well as direct abstraction from the river channel). Crop, livestock, chicken and even crocodile farming, were seen to be the main human activities in the river catchment. The presence of two large dams, viz. Marico Bosveld and Molatedi Dams significantly reduced downstream water low flows. Downstream from the latter impoundment near Madikwe Game Reserve a water supply transfer scheme to Botswana was seen to be in operation.

The upper reaches of the Heks River appeared to be in fairly good condition despite some farming activities making their presence felt. However the lower down around Rustenburg the river faces serious environmental challenges from burgeoning adjacent informal settlements and mining activities, the latter being of particular environmental concern. Despite this, the river has three dams, the Olifantsnek, Boskop and Vaalkop Dams before joining the Elands River.

The upper section of the Elands River appears to be overly abstracted, being reduced to a mere dry water course broken sporadically by a few pools. However, failing light curtailed further aerial surveying of this river before the lower reaches could be surveyed.

The helicopter survey was followed by a "groundtruthing" investigation of the potential SASS sites spotted from the air. Ms Christa Thirion, Mary-Jean Gabriel and Annelize Gerber from IWQS and Mr Zeth Setenane from the DWAF office in Hartebeespoort were joined by the North West River Health champion Dr Margaret Kalule-Sabiti, Stuart Mangold and eight nature conservation staff (all from North West Dept of Agriculture, Environment and Conservation) for a three day fieldtrip from the 21-23 September. This was a welcome training opportunity for the staff newly appointed to the Provincial Monitoring Sub-directorate to experience firsthand the SASS biomonitoring technique in action. These officials, based in various centres around the province such as Mafikeng, Vryburg, Mothibistad, Zeerust, Britz and Rustenburg, will ultimately be doing the biomonitoring fieldwork in the North West. Four sites on the Groot Marico and two on the Heks River were sampled during this fieldtrip.

Additional key rivers identified for biomonitoring within the somewhat arid North West Province are:

Where to from here?

The immediate plan to get the North West River Health Programme fully functional is to train the three monitoring teams in SASS. It is hoped that this will be done by the end of the year and that monitoring will begin in earnest within the first three months of the year 2000. Depending on the availability of funds for the purchase of equipment and training, it is hoped that fish sampling and riparian vegetation will begin sometime during that year. The North West Dept. of Agriculture, Environment and Conservation will be collaborating with the University of Potchefstroom and the University of North West on RHP related research. Special thanks to the DWAF IWQS team Dr Neels Kleynhans, Mr Dana Grobler, Ms Christa Thirion, Ms Mary-Jean Gabriel and Ms Annelize Gerber for their enthusiastic input into the NWRHP.