Water Wheel July/Aug 2026: Water Resource Management

Abstract

Tucked away in the mountains south-west of Worcester in the Western Cape is a small tributary of the Breede River that punches above its weight as a focus for applied research and infrastructure investment. Over the past decade, the Holsloot River has been the subject of a series of technical studies and government-led interventions to improve water security in the Breede Valley. The first project to be completed was the Holsloot weir and diversion works, which the provincial government’s Minister of Agriculture officially handed over to the Holsloot Water User Association (WUA) in May 2021. Next was the raising of the feeder canal from the Holsloot River to Brandvlei Dam, which was completed in October 2022 and formally launched by national government’s Minister of Water and Sanitation in February 2023. More recently, local government in the form of the Breede Valley Municipality commissioned a feasibility study on increasing water storage in the Stettynskloof Dam, which impounds the river’s upper reaches.

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