Since 1992, ALCOM has been gathering information on Surface Water Bodies (SWBs) from all countries in the mainland SADC Region. In the past four years this work has evolved from a compilation of a list of dams to what is now probably the most complete and accurate database on all surface water bodies at SADC level and for a number of countries even at national level.
Database fields include geographical, administrative, meteorological, socio-economic, physical and chemical data as well as data on the use of the water body, presence of plant and animal species and fishing activity. Linking to other existing databases with other fields has been made possible by the use of unique identifiers which enables generation of supplementary information.
Since 1996, the SWB database has been integrated in a geographical interface which has enabled a multitude of applications in various disciplines: hydrology, agriculture, fisheries, health, environment or general development. Besides the SWB digital map which holds the point data for all geo-referenced water bodies, the database is now also including polygon data for a number of water bodies.
The South African part of the database has been rather superficial for quite some time and was based on only one list of dams. In 1996 and 97, intensified efforts were undertaken to update the South African SWBs. This resulted in a mission to Pretoria undertaken in September 1997, to contact the different resource institutions on Surface Water at a national level. Several lists and databases were gathered from the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry (DWAF), Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEAT), and the Water Research Commission (WRC).
The compilation of these lists and databases resulted in a database which holds information on 3843 Surface Water Bodies in South Africa. This document provides information on the data sources, the procedure used to merge the data and the final result of the merging. This includes the identification of errors in the original data sets.
We hope that the present database will not be an end point but both a useful instrument for the end users and an occasion for collaborators to update, correct and supplement the current product.
