In order for an economy to survive and thrive it requires resources. Water is a resource that
not only the economy is dependent on but also ecological and human communities. The
deteriorated state of South African rivers suggests the intensive use of the country’s
freshwater reserves by the population and industry. Such a source of freshwater is the
Wonderfonteinspruit. It flows through an area that requires water for gold mining that has
taken place in the area for more than 120 years. Furthermore, the Wonderfonteinspruit runs
past communities such as Bekkersdal and eventually forms part of the source waters for the
Boskop Dam, the main drinking water reservoir for Potchefstroom.
Literature suggests that the Wonderfonteinspruit is impacted by anthropogenic activities, in
particular impacts associated with both historical and current gold mining activities. The
Wonderfonteinspruit has its origin in the Tudor Dam in Krugersdorp (now Mogale City), and
then flows into Donaldson Dam from where it is piped in a 32 km long pipeline, before its
confluence with the Mooi River which subsequently flows into the Boskop Dam. The study
area specifically focuses on the Upper Wonderfonteinspruit from just downstream of the
Donaldson Dam to just upstream of the dam. The study area was selected due to the close
proximity of the Donaldson Dam to the community of Bekkersdal which formed the second
part of the investigation for this thesis.
Bekkersdal is primarily a mining community that has historically faced issues with sufficient
land provision, housing, unemployment and service delivery. It is located in the Gauteng
Province and falls under the jurisdiction of Westonaria Local Municipality. Recent protests by
community members have occurred due to the lack of service delivery and inappropriate
development of infrastructure with regards to water services. Due to the close proximity of
Bekkersdal to the Wonderfonteinspruit (as it is situated on the border of the Donaldson Dam)
the community provided an ideal study area to explore the use of the river by the community.
In order to determine the relationship between the Wonderfonteinspruit and the community
of Bekkersdal the study comprised two parts: during the first part of the study, the ecological
state of the Wonderfonteinspruit was determined through the evaluation of the quality of
water, sediment and biota within the river; while in the second part an assessment of
Bekkersdal (both formal and informal sections) was undertaken through the use of
questionnaires in order to determine past, current and future water use of both municipal
water and water sourced from the Wonderfonteinspruit. The final outcomes of both the
environmental and social assessments were then compared with national and international
standards.
Water quality assessment of the Wonderfonteinspruit was done by assessing the following:
- in situ water quality parameters (such as pH, total dissolved solids and dissolved
oxygen)
- metal and ionic composition analysis of water samples using inductively coupled plasma
mass spectrophotometry (ICP-MS)
- nutrient loads using a spectrophotometer and Spectroquant® test kits
- bacteriological quality by determining presence of total coliforms and faecal coliforms
through the growth of bacterial cultures on M-ENDO and m-FC agar plates
- the Physico-chemical Driver Assessment Index (PAI) was applied according to DWAF
2008
- statistical relevance between sites and results through principal component analysis
(PCA)
Finally, these results, where applicable, were compared to both national and international
standards for human and ecological use.
The results indicated that the water quality levels exceeded the guideline values of national
and international standards for the following uses: drinking water, certain industrial activities,
watering of certain livestock and crop types as well as aquaculture. It was also found that the
water quality was acceptable for certain activities (e.g. recreation) only if precautions and
further analysis are performed. The guideline values of national water quality standards for
ecological status were also exceeded, while the PAI results indicated that the ecological
category (EC) for the Wonderfonteinspruit is a D which indicates that the state of the water
quality in terms of the ecology is fair.
The sediment quality of the Wonderfonteinspruit was determined by ICP-MS. The metal
composition of the sediment was compared to that of other rivers and the following indices
were applied: enrichment factor (EF), contamination factor (CF), pollution load index (PLI)
and geo-accumulation index (Igeo). It was found that the sediment composition is comparable
to that of other rivers impacted by gold mining and that uranium, cobalt and nickel enriched
the sediment according to the indices.
Biotic indicators that were assessed included fish, diatoms and invertebrates. The fish health
assessment index (HAI) was applied to fish caught in the Donaldson Dam. The muscle
tissue was also removed and its metal concentration was determined by ICP-MS.
Thereafter, the edibility of the fish muscle tissue was determined and the following indices
were applied: condition factor (CF), hepatosomatic index (HSI), gonadosomatic index (GSI)
and spleen somatic index (SSI). The diatom community composition was assessed by
applying the Biological Diatom Index (BDI), Specific Pollution Sensitivity Index (SPI) and the
percentage pollution tolerant valves (%PTV). The Macroinvertebrate Response Assessment
Index (MIRAI) was applied in order to determine the state of the macroinvertebrate
community.
The fish assessment indicated that arsenic contamination may negatively impact the health
of consumers. Diatom indices indicated that the EC of the Wonderfonteinspruit is a D/E
which indicates poor water quality; likewise, this is supported by the MIRAI results as the EC
for MIRAI was a D which indicates that the river is largely modified.
The investigation into the water use of the Bekkersdal community, with a special focus on
the use of the Wonderfonteinspruit, was achieved through the use of questionnaires that
were distributed in both formal and informal sections in Bekkersdal. The research forms part
of a larger Integrative Multidisciplinary study and was given ethical clearance under the NRF
Community Engagement Project (see Ethical Clearance: no. FH-BE-2013-0014. The
National Research Fund (NRF) provided the funding for the research, the views expressed is
that of the author and not those of the NRF.
The aim of the questionnaire was to determine the following aspects in terms of the
community of Bekkersdal:
- Demographic details, such as language preference, employment status and age
distribution.
- Current water use practices .
- Use of the Wonderfonteinspruit.
- Future water use of the Wonderfonteinspruit.
- Water quality perceptions of the Wonderfonteinspruit.
- Field notes that included any relevant observations of the fieldworkers.
The unemployment rate of the Bekkersdal community was found to be high (78.20%) and
86.40% of the residents are South African citizens. The community relies heavily on
municipal provision of sources of water with 100% of the respondents indicating that it is
their primary source of water. However, several issues were identified in terms of municipal
water supply in the community. Some 10.14% of the residents indicated that they make
regular use of the Wonderfonteinspruit (in particular the Donaldson Dam) most often for
drinking water, laundry and washing of cars, etc. Regarding the state of the
Wonderfonteinspruit, the overall viewpoint of the Bekkersdal community was that it is largely
polluted with sewage, litter and mining waste. However, some 87.80% of the residents
expressed their willingness to participate in environmental clean-up initiatives in their area.
The link between the ecological state of the Wonderfonteinspruit and human health and
wellbeing was explored through the use of spider diagrams where rank scores were
assigned to both index results and human water quality use categories. These were
compared and it was found that ecological indicators are more sensitive than human water
quality use scores and therefore can aid in acting as early detection indicators of possible
negative impacts on human health and wellbeing. / MSc (Environmental Sciences), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:nwu/oai:dspace.nwu.ac.za:10394/15364 |
| Date | January 2015 |
| Creators | Liefferink, Simone Laila |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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