Tracing van Riebeeck's footsteps

Abstract

Water resources management Some of Cape T own’s rivers are in a sorry state, but efforts to rehabilitate them are hampered by the fact that they have been changed so much from their predisturbance condition. In the years since Jan van Riebeeck arrived at the Cape, the water in these rivers has been used for drinking, cooking, irrigation, washing and carrying away sewage and other waste, while their courses have been re-directed, excavated, cased in concrete and silted up with eroded sediment. The Water Research Commission (WRC) funded project into the history of Cape T own’s river systems – aimed at using hindsight to guide the management of urban river systems in South Africa – is documenting these human interventions, drawing on a wealth of information in the libraries of the Cape Town City Council, the State Archives and the University of Cape Town. “We are also looking at the inevitable mistakes that have been made, to see what lessons we can learn from them,” explains project leader Dr Cate Brown, of Southern Waters.

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