South Africa’s first publicly accessible, web-based, interactive surface and groundwater resources reporting system, that was being created as part of the Water Research Commission’s (WRC’s) 'Water Resources (WR) 2012' study would become functional by the end of this year, instead of, as was originally planned, in 2016 when the study was completed, the WRC said on Thursday.

WRC research manager Wandile Nomquphu explained that the high level of interest in the information the WR2012 project had to offer had led to the commission bringing the date forward.

The WR2012 study, which was being executed by a consortium of consulting engineering firms led by Royal Haskoning DHV, was the sixth comprehensive national water resource assessment to be undertaken in South Africa since the first was completed in 1952.

“Undertaking regular water resource quantification assessments not only informs the country of its available water resources, but helps to augment decision-makers’ and specialists’ understanding of how the natural hydrological cycle behaves,” WRC CEO Dhesigen Naidoo said.

Compared with the previous water resource study, the WR2005 project, the level of detail of water resources information in the WR2012 study had been broadened to include information on reservoirs, land use/water use and other water resource aspects.

New spreadsheets had also been compiled to provide details of this land use/water use, which would make future updating easier, with the project also intending to continually incorporate recent work by other consultants on various catchments, as well as update all data, the WRC said. 

One of the most important aspects of the WR2012 study was the improvement of the WRSM2000 catchment model, which was widely used in the South African water resource assessment process.

“The WRSM2000 model is undergoing some major improvements," Royal Haskoning DHV project leader Allan Bailey said, adding that, as this model was linked to the WRYM model used by the Department of Water Affairs to analyse the yield of dams and the WRPM model used to do future water resource planning, it was extremely important that all three models were continually improved.

As part of the capacity building, the research team had also presented a number of training courses on the newly improved WRSM2000 model at several universities, “with great success”.

The purpose of the training was to broaden the awareness of the various water resource models available and explain how to set up and use the WRSM2000 model for a water resources system.

“Deteriorating monitoring of South Africa’s rainfall and streamflow as well as groundwater levels remain the biggest challenge to the successful completion of the project,” noted Nomquphu.

WR2012 was due for completion in April 2016.