Plans afoot to save Cape Town’s largest estuary

Abstract

Estuaries Plans afoot to save Cape Town’s largest estuary Photographs from the first aerial survey of the south-western Cape, conducted in March 1938, show the sandy course of the Diep River opening out into the vast, dried-out pans of Rietvlei, then reforming into a channel before entering the sea some 5 km north of Table Bay Harbour. Apart from a racecourse, a few roads and a handful of houses set amongst rows of empty plots – the nascent suburb of Milnerton – the land is undeveloped, but even then there is evidence of human impact on the estuary. The lower reaches are constrained between hardened banks, while a weir near the mouth dams the flow, designed to raise the water level for rowing and sailing regattas. In fact, the estuary had already been dramatically altered by that stage. The earliest maps of the area show it joined by a backwater channel to the adjacent Salt River, resulting in an extensive wetland with two openings to the sea.

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