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High risk that water demand in Gauteng will exceed available resources

08 April 2025 | Story Andre Damons | Photo Andre Damons

DrSophie-Biskop_ProfFrancois-Engelbrecht — Dr Sophie Biskop from the Department of Geography at the Schiller University Jena, Germany, and Prof Francois Engelbrecht, a Professor of Climatology at the Global Change Institute (GCI), University of the Witwatersrand, at the Southern African Mountain Conference (SAMC).

The severe El Niño drought of 2015/16, which culminated in the Vaal dam reaching an alarming low water level (~25%), prompted scientists to try and predict whether climate change could bring a drought so severe and long lasting that Gauteng could run out of water.

Prof Francois Engelbrecht, a Professor of Climatology at the Global Change Institute (GCI), University of the Witwatersrand, is one of the scientists working on this project and says though they cannot predict a Day Zero drought with certainty, he thinks it is possible that Gauteng might run out of water in the 2030s or 2040s.

“This is the biggest climate change risk South Africa faces”, he said.

Prof Engelbrecht and Dr Sophie Biskop from the Institute of Geography at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany, together with other scientists are working on a project involving hydrological modelling to predict and prevent a Day Zero from happening. Dr Biskop presented their research paper titled ‘Projected hydrological futures of South Africa's mega-dam region’ at the second Southern African Mountain Conference (SAMC2025) in March, indicating there is a high risk that the water demand in Gauteng will exceed available water resources within the Integrated Vaal River System (IVRS) under future climate change.

Gauteng may be severely compromised

The IVRS, a large, complex water system comprising water resources of different river basins, and several mega-dams within, has been constructed to secure the water supply of the Gauteng province, the economic hub in South Africa.

According to the researchers, Southern Africa is a water-stress hot spot and is projected to become significantly warmer and likely also drier under global climate change, increasing the risk of devastating hydrological droughts. The IVRS, Dr Biskop told the attendees, is vulnerable to the occurrence of multi-year droughts as experienced between 2012 and in 2016. The alarming low water level of the Vaal dam after a period of drought of 2015/16 provided early warning that water security of Gauteng may be directly and severely compromised in a changing climate. Potential evapotranspiration will increase as a consequence of strong regional warming.

Answering questions

“There is consequently a high risk that the water demand in the Gauteng province will exceed available water resources within the IVRS under future climate change. This raises the question if under ongoing climate change the natural hydrological system (without considering water transfers between dam catchments) can maintain dam levels in South Africa’s eastern mega-dam region, and particularly within the Lesotho Highlands,” explained Dr Biskop.

“To answer this question, the aim of our study is to quantify future water balance changes of several dams under changing climate conditions using the Jena Adaptable Modelling System (JAMS), a software framework for component-based development of environmental models. For this purpose, we build process-based hydrological models for several dam catchments.”

She said an ensemble of high-resolution regional climate change projections is subsequently used as forcing, to generate future hydrological projections. The analysis of projected changes in hydrological system components (precipitation, evapotranspiration, run-off) provides probabilistic estimates of the occurrence of a regional climate change tipping point - when the natural water supply can no longer achieve the full storage capacity of the mega-dams which supply the Gauteng region.

Working to prevent Day Zero

According to Prof Engelbrecht, they are working with the City of Johannesburg, the National Department of Water and Sanitation and Rand Water on this project. Their hope for this research is to create awareness in order to try and prevent Day Zero from happening. They also hope to assist these role players in building resilience and help them prepare for Day Zero. Their work with the City of Johannesburg also includes helping the city to reduce water wastage and change water users’ behaviour as well as formulating a disaster management plan should Day Zero happen.

The Southern African Mountain Conference (SAMC) series is unique as it seeks to integrate science, policy and practitioner sectors for sustainable interventions in southern African mountains. SAMC events are conceptualised by the Afromontane Research Unit (ARU) of the University of the Free State (UFS), the African Mountain Research Foundation (AMRF) and Global Mountain Safeguard Research (GLOMOS), a joint initiative between Eurac Research and the UNU Institute for Environment and Human Security. These three organisations form the Primary Partners, with the SAMC series being implemented by The Peaks Foundation (a non-profit company). SAMC2025 is being held under the patronage of UNESCO.

News Archive

Researchers international leaders in satellite tracking in the wildlife environment

2015-05-29

Ground-breaking research has attracted international media attention to Francois Deacon, lecturer and researcher in the Department Animal, Wildlife and Grassland Sciences at the UFS, and Prof Nico Smit, from the same department. They are the first researchers in the world to equip giraffes with GPS collars, and to conduct research on this initiative. Recently, they have been joined by Hennie Butler from the Department of Zoology as well as Free State Nature Conservation to further this research.

“Satellite tracking is proving to be extremely valuable in the wildlife environment. The unit is based on a mobile global two-way communication platform, utilising two-way data satellite communication, complete with GPS systems.

“It allows us to track animals day and night, while we monitor their movements remotely from the computer. These systems make possible the efficient control and monitoring of wildlife in all weather conditions and in near-to-real time. We can even communicate with the animals, calling up their positions or changing the tracking schedules.

“The satellite collar allows us to use the extremely accurate data to conduct research with the best technology available. The volume of data received allows us to publish the data in scientific journals and research-related articles.

“Scientific institutions and the public sector have both shown great interest in satellite tracking, which opens up new ground for scientific research for this university. Data management can be done, using Africa Wildlife Tracking (AWT) equipment where we can access our data personally, store it, and make visual presentations. The AWT system and software architecture provide the researcher with asset tracking, GPS location reports, geo-fencing, highly-detailed custom mapping, history reports and playback, polling on demand, history plotting on maps, and a range of reporting types and functions,” Francois said.

Data can be analysed to determine home range, dispersal, or habitat preference for any specific species.

Francois has been involved in multiple research projects over the last 12 years on wildlife species and domesticated animals, including the collaring of species such as Black-backed Jackal, Caracal, African Wild Dog, Hyena, Lion, Cheetah, Cattle, Kudu, Giraffe, and Black Rhino: “Giraffe definitely being the most challenging of all,” he said.

In 2010, he started working on his PhD, entitled The spatial ecology, habitat preferences and diet selection of giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis giraffa) in the Kalahari region of South Africa.

Since then, his work has resulted not only in more research work (supervising four Masters students) but also in a number of national and international projects. These include work in the:

Kalahari region (e.g. Khamab Nature Reserve and Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park)
Kuruman region (Collared 18 cattle to identify spatial patterns in relation to the qualities of vegetation and soil-types available. This project took place in collaboration with Born University in Germany)
Woodland Hills Wildlife Estate and Kolomella Iron Ore – ecological monitoring
A number of Free State nature reserves (e.g. Distribution of herbivores (kudu and giraffe) and predators (camera traps)

Francois is also involved with species breeding programmes and management (giraffe, buffalo, sable, roan, and rhino) in Korrannaberg, Rustenburg, Hertzogville, Douglas, and Bethlehem as well as animal and ecological monitoring in Kolomella and Beesthoek iron ore.

Besides the collaring of giraffes, Francois and his colleagues are involved in national projects, where they collect milk from lactating giraffes and DNA material, blood samples, and ecto/endo parasites from giraffes in Southern Africa.

With international projects, Francois is working to collect DNA material for the classification of the nine sub-species of giraffe in Africa. He is also involved in projects focusing on the spatial ecology and adaptation of giraffe in Uganda (Murchison Falls), and to save the last 30 giraffe in the DRC- Garamba National Park.

This project has attracted a good deal of international interest. In June 2014, a US film crew (freelancing for Discovery Channel) filmed a documentary on Francois’ research (trailer of documentary). Early in 2015, a second crew, filming for National Geographic, also visited Francois to document his work.

More information about Francois’ work is available at the GCF website.

Read Francois Deacon's PhD abstract

Direct enquiries to news@ufs.ac.za.

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