The management of surface water activities is governed in terms of the National Water Act (No. 36 of 1998) Part 4 deals with prevention and contamination, and in particular the situation where pollution occurs or might occur as a result of activities on land.

“The person who owns, controls, occupies or uses the land in question is responsible for taking measures to prevent pollution of water resources. If these measures are not taken, the catchment management agency concerned may itself do whatever is necessary to provent the pollution or to remedy its effects, and to recover all reasonable costs from the persons responsible for the pollution”

Surface water assessments are also verified against the requirements of Regulation GN704 of 4 June, 1999 in terms of the National Water Act specifically for mining operations GN704 audits are often combined with surface water assessments to provide the client with a comprehensive report.

Hydrology is the study of water in the natural or disturbed environment and is defined as the investigation of the amount and quality of water being stored or conveyed on the land surface. The amount of runoff generated within a catchment through precipitation will depend on the characteristics of the storm event, the response characteristics of the catchment and the influence of temporal storage on the run-off.

Shangoni has experience in providing hydrological modelling, which is carried out as part of the flood risk and drainage assessments. Different hydrological calculation methods are applied in the determination of design floods and are verified against each other. Flood Line Determinations are also included as part of Hydrological assessments to aid in the decision making process for future developments.

Our team has extensive experience in developing storm water management plans and strive to propose practical and implementable solutions to address potential concerns identified.

Water of good quality is crucial to sustainable socio-economic development and preservation of the environment as it is recognised that aquatic ecosystems are threatened on a world-wide scale by a variety of pollutants as well as destructive land-use or water-management practises. The need for water quality monitoring can be linked to a variety of reasons of which the principal has been to determine suitability against intended use/s. Our team provides the following surface water monitoring services:

• Monitoring programmes;
• Surface water quality monitoring;
• Drinking water quality monitoring;
• Compliance monitoring; Up and downstream impact evaluations;
• Assessing suitability of in-stream quality for downstream users;
• and Interpretation of data and reporting by trained by SACNASP registered scientists.

A dynamic water balance is fundamental to optimising water management and minimising water use on any site. Shangoni provides detailed insight in the development of long term water balances to enable instantaneous examination of the changing situation of an operation. The aim of water balance modelling included within surface water assessments is to:

• Quantify and understand the proposed surface water usage in an around an operation;
• Identify possible areas of loss, wastage and inappropriate wastage of water;
• and Obtain an understanding of expected runoff contribution into containment facilities.

Surface water resources are precious commodities especially in a semi-arid country such as South Africa. Our team of specialists determine the environmental risk of surface water activities using a combination of parameters associated with possible impacts. The risk assessment methodology is based on defining and understanding the three basic components of the risk, i.e. the source of the risk, the pathway and the target that experiences the risk.