Water Wheel March 2022: South African Rivers

Abstract

Lower Orange’s spectacular summer show draws attention to the plight of SA rivers According to a study published in Nature in 2019, only 37% of rivers longer than 1 000 kilometers remain free-flowing over their entire length, and only 23% flow uninterrupted to the ocean. Very long free-flowing rivers are today largely restricted to remote regions of the Arctic, the Amazon, and the Congo basins. Intensely managed rivers like the Orange have become pillars of development in the vast tracts of land that they run through, and their management entails a balancing act of the needs of a large number and variety of users that depend on the river’s water. As a result, and ironically for a country like South Africa so intimately associated with drought, high levels of flow in the Orange do not only bring blessings anymore. There are prices to pay too, as this summer rainfall season has shown. The mechanics behind the water that becomes both gift and curse as it traverses more than 2 000 km over the country, start in Lesotho.

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