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As a primary source of water for all purposes and regulated under LIMCOM, surface water monitoring is of utmost importance.
Botswana measures dam reservoir levels but does not measure river discharge. The current data are available; however, historical data must be requested.
Mozambique lists data sources on the SIRHAS database. All data must be requested from ARA-Sul.
South Africa Department of Water and Sanitation has an online database to access all available river data. Other data are available from their other databases.
Zimbabwe does not have readily available water data; however, there is likely data available with the correct contacts.
Additionally, there are tools available for water resources monitoring. These are global tools that have great use in regions that have data discovery and retrieval difficulties.
The Database for Hydrological Time Series of Inland Waters (DAHITI) uses remote sensing altimetry and other imagery to estimate total water storage in waterbodies:
The African Database of Hydrometric Indices (ADHI) provides indices and typical meteorologic and hydrologic information based on historical data:
The Trans-African Hydro-Meteorological Observatory (TAHMO) provides non-commercial access to a range of weather stations throughout Africa.
The Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science (CUAHSI) provides training, data governance best practices (Horsburgh et al., 2008), and options for data repositories. All repositories are publicly available. Data discovery is facilitated through a map interface.
Water quality data goes hand-in-hand with quantity data. Quality data are somewhat more dispersed. Through research and stakeholder engagement, we have found water quality data for the Limpopo River Basin available.
Water quality of South Africa
Inventory of inland aquatic ecosystems
National eutrophication monitoring program
National freshwater ecosystem priority areas
Freshwater biodiversity information system
Groundwater is a critical resource for many residents and businesses in the LRB. Riparian states’ regulations all require registration of some form, which was used to create the SADC-GMI dataset below; however, anecdotal evidence suggests boreholes are drilled without any registration and that some newer ones must be drilled deeper.
The Southern Africa Development Community, Groundwater Management Institute (SADC-GMI) has curated the borehole data for southern Africa under their Hydrogeological Mapping Project (sign-in required to download data):
Gravity anomaly is measured by the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE, GRACE-FO). These satellites measure changes in gravity over the approximately 16-day repeat cycle. These data can be useful to assess large area groundwater changes, such as an entire basin or large sub-basin.
South Africa Department of Water and Sanitation has an online database to access all available meteorological data. We had difficulty getting a response when we inquired about the purchase of data from the South African Weather Service.
The Global Precipitation Measurement mission (GPM, an extension of the Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission, TRMM) provides near-global coverage of precipitation with a network of radar satellites (Hou et al., 2014). Our preliminary analysis of weather stations in the Limpopo Basin show that monthly data over a mid-range area (on the order of 105 ha) agreed with the current gold standard of tipping bucket gauges. Daily data and data averaged over a small (on the order of 102 ha) showed inconsistencies of unknown origin. The GPM data can be easily visualized through NASA’s Giovanni tool.
LAND INFORMATION Designated protected areas have organizational criteria that define their protection such as parks and reserves and Ramsar-recognized wetlands. These lands have been curated and disseminated by Protected Planet.
South African land cover is assessed by remote sensing technologies and groundtruthed; this dataset is updated every two to five years.
The South African National Park Service collects a range of data that is available with registration of the planned use of the data: