April 2020
For World Wide Fund for Nature, funded by Woolworths, AquaLinks is busy with a study on the impacts of faecal pollution in the Sabie and Crocodile Catchments on agricultural economics.
Field visits to farmers have been replaced with questionnaires and phone calls due to the COVID-19 lockdown, but otherwise we are busy.
(Photo credit: Low Velder)
April 2020
All deliverables on the project “Research on the Use of Sustainable Drainage in Gauteng” for the Gauteng Department of Agriculture and Rural Development are now available online via the Future Water Institute of the University of Cape Town.
www.futurewater.uct.ac.za/gauteng-suds-research
This project was completed in March 2020, with the Urban Rivers Alliance (Fourth Element, Eco-Pulse, AquaLinks), NMA and Greenvision Consulting. AquaLinks provided project management, facilitation and organisation of workshops and meetings, contents contributions and editing.
Enjoy the reading and let it be for increased implementation of Sustainable Drainage in the whole of South Africa and beyond, but in particular in Gauteng.
March 2020
Cheers to the finalization of the project ‘Research on the Use of Sustainable Drainage Systems for Gauteng’ for GDARD by the Urban River Alliance (Fourth Element, AquaLinks, Eco-Pulse), NMA, Greenvision Consulting and TAUW. It was an honour to be the project manager of the Consultants Team and facilitator of the Workshops and PSC meetings, as well as co-author of the deliverables.
Deliverables, including Implementation Manual will be soon published on GCRO and UCT website. AquaLinks will keep you updated.
February, 2020
This is what the TAHMO weather stations measured 7/8 February 2020 in Johannesburg:
October 2019
Life can be circular; From 1995-2001 I worked for Prof Hubert Savenije and completed my PhD under him in 2002. Fast forward 2019 and the 20th Waternet symposium is around the corner of the AquaLinks offices. Prof Dominic Mazvimavi is quoting Prof Hubert Savenije on the seed we all planted then. Waternet is now a tree under which shade a lot of IWRM researchers have grown.
AquaLinks is represented at the Waternet-symposium by Marieke de Groen and Fungisai Chiduku, together representing the Trans-African Hydro-Meteorological Observatory.
The plea is the same as in 1995: measure more and use the data!
October 2019
AquaLinks arranged that the PSC & PMC & guests of “Research on the use of Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems in Gauteng” could ponder about the possibility of green roofs in the CBD from the 15th floor “Elevate Rooftop venue” in Marshalltown Johannesburg. All background studies are now submitted: Literature Review, Inventory of SuDS in Gauteng, Analysis of the three Study Areas and Recommendations (the three study areas being Kagiso, CBD-Johannesburg, Bonaero Park-Atlasville), Decision Support Tools for SuDS in Gauteng, Best Management Practices. Now the last big step is to get it all into a concise Implementation Manual!
July 2019
A workshop on Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems in preparation of an implementation manual for Gauteng, as prepared by GDARD, took place on 26 July in Johannesburg. Over 60 participants from government, consultancies, academia, property owners, civil society and community participated. AquaLinks led the organisation and facilitation as part of the Urban Rivers Alliance with FourthElement and Eco-Pulse and with NMA and Greenvision Consulting. After a presentation by Stuart Dunsmore on the three Study Areas used (Kagiso, Bonaero, Johannesburg CBD), there were parallel sessions on making SuDS sustainable, retro-fitting SuDS, policies and institutions and the land development process. We are getting Gauteng going on SuDS, towards a water sensitive and water secure Gauteng!
June 2019
While the NSO financed Rain4Africa project is officially closed off, the consortium will continue to roll out AgriCloud! Watch the video in this link.
AquaLinks as subcontractor of Hydrologic and Weather Impact, has worked together with the other consortium partners ARC, SAWS, WDOD, eLEAF, KNMI, Winejob to deliver the deliverables, resulting in Apps for smartphone and USSD, as well as desktop advice and API connections to decision support systems. For the Agro-industry and beyond.
AquaLinks will continue to support the roll out.
February 2019
AquaLinks organised and facilitated on 5 February the GDARD workshop “Research on the Use of Sustainable (Urban) Drainage Systems in Gauteng” with the others in the Urban Rivers Alliance (FourthElement and Eco-Pulse) and with NMA and GreenvisionConsulting.
Big thanks to all participants from private sector, academia and government! The rain and clouds of the San embroideries in the Origins Centre inspired the over thirty participants.
N.B. we are uploading SuDS projects in www.climatescan.nl
December 2018
The Conference Proceedings of the international conference Adaptation Futures 2018, about climate change adaptation, are published.
AquaLinks assisted Floris Boogaard in two papers published, and Marieke de Groen was therefore mentioned as co-author:
