Related Research Articles
The Orange River is a river in Southern Africa. It is the longest river in South Africa. The Orange River Basin extends extensively from Lesotho into South Africa and Namibia to the north. It rises in the Drakensberg mountains in Lesotho, flowing westwards through South Africa to the Atlantic Ocean. The river forms part of the international borders between South Africa and Lesotho and between South Africa and Namibia, as well as several provincial borders within South Africa. Except for Upington, it does not pass through any major cities. The Orange River plays an important role in the South African economy by providing water for irrigation and hydroelectric power. The river was named the Orange River in honour of the Dutch ruling family, the House of Orange, by the Dutch explorer Robert Jacob Gordon. Other names include simply the word for river, in Khoekhoegowab orthography written as !Garib, which is rendered in Afrikaans as Gariep River with the intrusion of a velar fricative in place of the alveolar click, Groote River or Senqu River, derived from ǂNū "Black".
The Vaal River is the largest tributary of the Orange River in South Africa. The river has its source near Breyten in Mpumalanga province, east of Johannesburg and about 30 kilometres (19 mi) north of Ermelo and only about 240 kilometres (150 mi) from the Indian Ocean. It then flows westwards to its conjunction with the Orange River southwest of Kimberley in the Northern Cape. It is 1,120 kilometres (700 mi) long, and forms the border between Mpumalanga, Gauteng and North West Province on its north bank, and the Free State on its south.
Warragamba Dam is a heritage-listed dam in the outer South Western Sydney suburb of Warragamba, Wollondilly Shire in New South Wales, Australia. It is a concrete gravity dam, which creates Lake Burragorang, the primary reservoir for water supply for the city of Sydney. The dam wall is located approximately 65 kilometres (40 mi) to the southwest of Sydney central business district, near the town of Wallacia.
The Vaal Dam in South Africa was constructed in 1938 and lies 77 km south of OR Tambo International Airport. The lake behind the dam wall has a surface area of about 320 square kilometres (120 sq mi) and is 47 meters deep. The Vaal Dam lies on the Vaal River, which is one of South Africa's strongest-flowing rivers. Other rivers flowing into the dam are the Wilge River, Klip River, Molspruit and Grootspruit. It has over 800 kilometres (500 mi) of shoreline and is South Africa's second biggest dam by area and the fourth largest by volume.
Standerton is a large commercial and agricultural town lying on the banks of the Vaal River in Mpumalanga, South Africa, which specialises in cattle, dairy, maize and poultry farming. The town was established in 1876 and named after Boer leader Commandant A. H. Stander. During the First Boer War a British garrison in the town was besieged by the Boers for three months. General Jan Smuts won this seat during elections and went on to assist in setting up the League of Nations. Standerton is part of the Lekwa Local Municipality.
The Gariep Dam is located in South Africa, near the town of Norvalspont, bordering the Free State and Eastern Cape provinces. Its primary purpose is for irrigation, domestic and industrial use as well as for power generation.
Concor Holdings (Proprietary) Limited. is a South African construction company. It is active throughout Southern Africa, involved in mining, civil engineering, building and road projects. Concor returned as an independent brand in late 2016.
The Barnard River Scheme is an inter-basin water transfer system in New South Wales, which can transfer water from the Barnard River in the upper Manning River catchment over the Mount Royal Range into the Hunter River.
Calueque is a town next to a dam and pumping station of the same name on the Kunene River in the Kunene Province of southern Angola. The water project is linked to Ruacana, 20 km (12 mi) away in Namibia, where the Ruacana Power Station is. This dam is one of the last landmarks along the Kunene River, prior to the Kunene becoming a border feature between Angola and Namibia. A 300 km (190 mi) pipeline and canal extends across the border into Namibia, supplying towns as far away as Oshakati in Ovamboland with water. The dam was completed in 1976. However, due to the onset of the Angolan civil war following independence, the full master plan for the scheme was not realised by the South African and Portuguese governments.
The Steenbras Dam, now referred to as Steenbras Lower Dam, is a gravity concrete arch type dam located in the Hottentots-Holland mountains, above Gordons Bay, near Cape Town in South Africa. It is one of the six large dams that make up the Western Cape Water Supply System. It is owned by the City of Cape Town and serves principally to supply water to that city. The dam wall is 28 metres (92 ft) high and 412 metres (1,352 ft) long; it impounds a reservoir of 36,133 megalitres over a surface area of 380 hectares when full.
The Sterkfontein Dam, located just outside the town of Harrismith, in the Free State, province of South Africa, is part of the Tugela-Vaal Water Project and the Drakensberg Pumped Storage Scheme, and located on the Nuwejaarspruit, a tributary of the Wilge River in the upper catchment area of the Vaal River. It is the second highest dam wall in South Africa and its highest earth fill dam.
The Ingula Pumped Storage Scheme is a pumped-storage power station in the escarpment of the Little Drakensberg range straddling the border of the KwaZulu-Natal and Free State provinces, South Africa. It is about 22 km (14 mi) North-East of Van Reenen.
Interbasin transfer or transbasin diversion are terms used to describe man-made conveyance schemes which move water from one river basin where it is available, to another basin where water is less available or could be utilized better for human development. The purpose of such designed schemes can be to alleviate water shortages in the receiving basin, to generate electricity, or both. Rarely, as in the case of the Glory River which diverted water from the Tigris to Euphrates River in modern Iraq, interbasin transfers have been undertaken for political purposes. While ancient water supply examples exist, the first modern developments were undertaken in the 19th century in Australia, India and the United States; large cities such as Denver and Los Angeles would not exist as we know them today without these diversion transfers. Since the 20th century many more similar projects have followed in other countries, including Israel, Canada and China. Utilized alternatively, the Green Revolution in India and hydropower development in Canada could not have been accomplished without such man-made transfers.
The Drakensberg Pumped Storage Scheme is an energy storage facility built in the South African provinces of Free State and KwaZulu-Natal starting in 1974 and completed by 1981.
The Maguga Dam is a dam on the Komati River in Eswatini. It is 115 metres (377 ft) high and is located about 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) south of Piggs Peak. It was built as a joint project of the governments of South Africa and Eswatini. As of 2005, it was the largest public works project ever undertaken by Eswatini. The dam was completed in mid-2001.
Barnard River, a perennial river of the Manning River catchment, is located in the Northern Tablelands and Mid North Coast districts of New South Wales, Australia.
The Berg River Dam is a 68-metre (223 ft) high dam on the Berg River in South Africa. It is the centerpiece of the Berg Water Project (BWP) which is designed to capture the winter rainfall and store it for supply to Cape Town during the dry summer months. The project in turn forms an important part of the Western Cape Water Supply System (WCWSS), an intricate system of dams and bulk water infrastructure that provides water to more than 3 million people. At the inauguration of the dam in 2009, then President of South Africa Kgalema Motlanthe called the project "a good example of how public infrastructure projects can be used to contribute meaningfully to poverty eradication and to foster social empowerment of the people." The Berg River Dam was the first dam in South Africa to be designed and constructed, and is due to be operated, in accordance with the guidelines of the World Commission on Dams. It has been completed on time and within budget. The Berg River basin and the adjacent metropolitan area of Cape Town are of particular importance to the Western Cape region because, although the basin generates only about 3% of the country's water resources, it is home to about 8% of South Africa's population, and produces about 12% of GDP.
The Wilge River is a tributary of the Vaal River in central South Africa. This river is important as part of the Tugela-Vaal Water Transfer Scheme where water is transferred from the Tugela River basin to the Vaal River basin.
The North-South Carrier (NSC) is a pipeline in Botswana that carries raw water south for a distance of 360 kilometres (220 mi) to the capital city of Gaborone. Phase 1 was completed in 2000. Phase 2 of the NSC, under construction, will duplicate the pipeline to carry water from the Dikgatlhong Dam, which was completed in 2012. A proposed extension to deliver water from the Zambezi would add another 500 to 520 kilometres to the total pipeline length. The NSC is the largest engineering project ever undertaken in Botswana.