Hydrological Disaster Being Averted as GIS Helps Rid South Africa of Alien Plant LifeSouth Africa is a semiarid country and has always treasured the limited, but sufficient, amount of water that flows through its plains. Colonists found the area suitable for farming, and in addition to importing seeds for grain and vegetable cultivation, planted decorative European trees and shrubs and more exotic plants purchased from passing trading vessels. Commercial logging companies imported quick-growing pines for the burgeoning timber product industries. Unfortunately, some plant life "escaped" from their cultivated habitats and found a receptive environment near local creeks and streams. Thus were sown South Africa's seeds of hydrological disaster. Lacking natural insect and fungal predators to keep them in ecological balance, alien plant life proliferated, in many cases dominating local water sources as they forced indigenous species into extinction. The insidious alien vegetation was at first welcomed, as areas that had been traditionally barren produced verdant displays of trees and other plant life. It soon became apparent, however, that streams that had formerly flowed year-round were now dry, as pine, poplar, and gum trees drove tap roots deep into riverbeds and banks in their insatiable thirst. Recognizing that the problem was widespread and very labor intensive to eliminate, Professor Kader Asmal, minister of the government's Department of Water Affairs and Forestry, announced the Working for Water (WFW) program in 1995. The program currently employs approximately 20,000 people in a 20-year initiative to clear more than 10 million hectares of land. It is anticipated that this effort will release four billion cubic meters of water per year, or more than 7 percent of the country's entire water supply, which is currently consumed by alien plants. Working for Water has won a number of national and international awards including the World Wildlife Fund's "Best Conservation Project" in 1996. Since participation in the program is aimed at providing employment to the most marginalized in South African society-the unemployed, women, youth, disabled, single heads-of-households, and those generally trapped by poverty and neglect-it has had a powerful socioeconomic impact in the country. GIMS, the distributor for Esri's GIS software products in South Africa, has developed a prototype GIS-based project information management system for WFW to help them keep track of the more than 250 projects being simultaneously conducted across the country. All systems are based on Esri's ArcView GIS software and integrate systematic data capture, reporting, modeling, monitoring, and management tools. They manage information on a day-to-day project level, produce monthly reports for provincial project leaders, and produce summary reports for program management at the national level. For more information, contact Steve Hine, GIMS, South Africa (shine@gims.com). |
