The Vaal river catchment: Problems and research needs

Abstract

The vaal river catchments contains South African's economic heartland, the Pretoria -Witwatersrand-Vereeniging (PWV) complex. Although the catchments only produces eight per cent of the mean annual runoff of the country it has highest concentration of urban, industrial emphasis in the water generation development in South Africa. Initial emphasis in water management was therefore on the imbalance between available supply and growing demand. Later, however, the growing water pollution problems attracted considerable attention, particularly the steady increase in total salinity of the Val River.