Two more gates opened at Vaal Dam, high water levels anticipated in Douglas town, Northern Cape
Two more flood gates have been opened at Vaal Dam today, Saturday, 18 February 2023, as part of the Department of Water and Sanitation’s continuous dam safety precautions. This adds to the 10 gates that were already opened at the dam by
yesterday to a total of 12.
At Bloemhof Dam an outflow was increased to 2400 cubic metres per second by this afternoon.
High water levels and possible flooding is anticipated at Douglas Town in the Northern Cape, at the confluence of Vaal and Orange Rivers due to releases from Vanderkloof and Bloemhof dams, and residents are urged to be alert and may need to evacuate
where necessary to avoid harm or loss of lives.
The Department further appeals to all communities along the Vaal and Orange river system to remain vigilant and put measures in place to prevent casualties, minimise disruptions when water levels rise.
With the continuing heavy rains in large parts of the country, many rivers are overflowing, and most dams are full and spilling. The Vaal and Orange River System is also experiencing rapid rising water levels and has necessitated the opening the
gates to safeguard the infrastructure from collapsing.
Since rainfall and floods are a natural phenomenon and therefore control of the events may be limited, therefore the Department advises against putting essential services and human settlements within parts of the floodplains where there is likelihood of
frequent flooding, that is within a 1 in 100-year floodline.
Every year ahead of the high flow summer season rains, the Department develop a Flood Preparedness Plan and implement flood monitoring and forecasting systems, assesses the likelihood of flood incidents and its own preparedness to mitigate the
adverse effects of these floods on its infrastructure and guarantee full capacity on its storage reservoirs. All requisite measures are put in place to ensure that the Department will be able manage floods effectively.
All gauging equipment at sites used for flood monitoring are equipped with real-time river and dam level data transmission capability. These data are analysed to determine rainfall, river and dam level trends which enable the detection of the possibility and
timing of flooding. Some of the dams owned and operated by the Department have built-in additional capacity for limited flood retention and some have gated spillways. These reservoir components make it possible to lessen flood impacts by reducing. The gates make it possible to pre-emptively release water from reservoirs rapidly and there by opening more space to store proportions or entire volume of potentially destructive flood peaks.
