Water Resources of South Africa 2012 Study (WR2012)

Theme: Environment Date Added: 2018-12-10

Resource Type

Data Assets

XLSX SHP

What is it?

Extensive information on the water resources of South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland in the form of monitoring data, GIS maps, water resource models, spreadsheets and tools.

Key Points

  • GIS maps for rainfall, evaporation, streamflow, groundwater
  • Land use and water use data
  • WRSM/Pitman rainfall-runoff model datasets
  • Study began in 2012 and completed in 2016

Why is it Important?

The data and tools on the website enable water resource practitioners to investigate, analyse and plan their water resources studies.

How can it be accessed and used?

There are a number of water resource sections such as:

  1. GIS Maps of rainfall, evaporation, runoff, land use, geology, soils, sediment, vegetation, EWR, water quality streamflow, groundwater
  2. WRSM/ Pitman rainfall-runoff model datasets
  3. Streamflow data in rivers and dams
  4. Catchment rainfall data
  5. Naturalised flow datafiles
  6. Water quality data
  7. Land use/ water use data for every quaternary catchment
  8. Reservoir records and dam balances

In each of these sections you will be able to download spreadsheets or shapefiles (SHP) directly, after registering as a user on the system.

For additional water data see Department of Water and Sanitation sites (such as the Water Quality Data Exploration Tool or GIS data page) or the hydrographical data layers in the NGI topographical datasets via SASDI (such as for the Northern Cape).

To view SHP files and associated data layers you can use an open source tool such as QGIS, or convert the file using Mapshaper and upload to an online mapping tool like Kepler.

Dams and lakes of South Africa

Location: South Africa
Format: SHP
Year: 2012Last Checked:None
Online: Access URL
Column/
File Names:
  • NAME: Name of the water body
  • TYPE: Type of water body e.g. reservoir
  • AREA_KM2: Area of the water body
  • location
  • water
  • monitoring
  • planning

Resource contact name:Allan Bailey

Creation or start date:2018-12-10

Resource contact updated at:2018-12-14

Spatial coverage  South Africa http://www.geonames.org/953987/south-africa.html

Where else has the resource been used?

Year Project Name::
2018 Water Resources in South Africa
2018 Quantification of water resources uncertainties in the Luvuvhu sub-basin of the Limpopo river basin
2016 Estimates of the impacts of invasive alien plants on water flows in South Africa
Parent ORG:

Water Research Commission (WRC)
Serviced By: Royal HaskoningDHV

About This Organisation

The Water Research Commission (WRC) was established in terms of the Water Research Act of 1971 to coordinate, stimulate, fund and support the uptake of research on South Africa's key water needs.