Lesotho Highlands Water Project

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Map of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project
Dam of the Katse reservoir

The Lesotho Highlands Water Project ( Sesotho : metsi a lihlaba ; German: "Lesotho-Hochland-Wasserprojekt") is a partially completed dam project in the interior of the Kingdom of Lesotho , which, under the direction of Rand Water, supplies the South African Gauteng region around the city of Johannesburg with water .

Hydrological background

The dammed rivers belong to the catchment area of ​​the Oranje , which is called Senqu in Lesotho . The Senqu has its source in the Drakensberg in northeast Lesotho and flows west through South Africa and Namibia to the Atlantic . Although the mountainous region of Lesotho only makes up five percent of the catchment area of ​​the Orange River, it supplies around 50 percent of the water. The reason why the project is so useful is that the arid region of Gauteng, which receives little annual rainfall, can draw its water from the nearby rain-rich Lesotho Highlands - the western part of the Drakensberg - through natural slopes.

First planning and construction work

320 m WIRTH 529 in Lesotho

In the 1950s, a cooperation between South Africa and the then British Basutoland for the water supply of South Africa was proposed for the first time . A joint study of the possibilities was carried out in 1978, and detailed plans were available in 1983. Lesotho's interest in electricity from hydropower plants was also taken into account. Lesotho's Prime Minister Leabua Jonathan feared that South Africa would exert too much political influence on Lesotho and stopped the project. Negotiations were only resumed after a border blockade in South Africa, which completely encloses Lesotho, and the subsequent overthrow of Jonathan on January 20, 1986. On October 24, 1986, the then foreign ministers of Lesotho and South Africa signed the contract that was to regulate the construction of the dam project and the associated water export. At the same time, three authorities were set up to administer the LHWP: the Lesotho Highlands Development Authority (LHDA) for all matters relating to Lesotho, the Trans-Caledon Tunnel Authority for South Africa - coordinated by the Lesotho Highlands Water Commission (LHWC) - and the Joint Permanent Technical Commission for both states. The construction work began around 1989: First, some roads in the Highlands were renewed and partly paved.

Project overview

The primary goal of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project is to secure the water supply for Gauteng, but in 2015 Botswana also expressed interest in the project. In addition, the diverted water is used to generate electrical energy. Of the five dams originally planned, two ( Katse dam and Mohale dam ) have been built so far .

The project planning is divided into four sections, which describe the construction of the facilities for the project:

  • Phase IA: Construction of the Katse dam and the 82 kilometer long transfer tunnel through the Maloti Mountains to the Gauteng region. The water is transported over a natural gradient. The Muela hydropower plant in northern Lesotho uses this water to generate 72 megawatts of power.
  • Phase IB: Construction of the Mohale Dam and the 32-kilometer connecting tunnel between the Mohale Reservoir and Katse Reservoir. The water here also follows a natural gradient.
  • Phase II: Mashai dam (later: Polihali dam) and connecting tunnels to the Katse reservoir
  • Phase III: Tsoelike Dam and connecting tunnels to the Mashai Dam
  • Phase IV: Ntoahae Dam and connecting tunnels to the Tsoelike River

The reservoirs are characterized by dams up to 185 meters high and narrow, elongated shapes due to the deeply cut river valleys.

Phase I was completed in two steps: Phase IA was put into operation in 1998, Phase IB in 2003. Phase IA produces a delivery rate of 30 cubic meters per second. The groundbreaking ceremony for phase II took place on March 27, 2014, at which the contracts for the completion of phase II of the project were signed, whereby the financing is to be provided, among other things, by the bank of the BRICS countries. Completion of all phases would increase the delivery rate to around 70 cubic meters per second.

Mohale dam dam

Instead of the Mashai dam, the Polihali dam, located near Mashai, was planned in Phase II. In June 2015, the work on Polihali Dam on Kobong was tendered, which will include a 1200 MW hydropower plant, which should be completed in 2018. There were political tensions with South Africa because of the terms of the tender. In September 2016 it was announced that the then South African Minister of Water and Wastewater ( Water and Sanitation ) Nomvula Mokonyane against the Lesotho government - without consulting President Jacob Zuma have called for a significantly increased amount of water for their country -. This would have meant a rescheduling of future construction projects and thus a delay of several years. The reason was apparently the minister's plan to be able to favor her own acquaintances with a new tender. Cases of corruption had already been uncovered in the 1990s and 2000s, in which the LHDA CEO Masopha Sole and foreign companies such as the German company Lahmeyer International were involved. Phase II is Template: future / in 5 yearsexpected to be completed in 2026 (as of 2019), seven years later than originally planned.

In November 2017, representatives from Lesotho, South Africa, Namibia and Botswana signed a contract to promote the construction of another dam and a water pipeline leading to Botswana ( Lesotho-Botswana Water Transfer Project , LBWT). The Gaborone region and southern Botswana are to be supplied with water via the 720 kilometer pipeline through South Africa .

Effects on humans and the environment

The construction of the dams made relocations necessary. The relocated households in phase IA still do not have the planned standard of living. The project was controversial in the 1980s as it increased Lesotho's economic dependence on South Africa, which was then still under the apartheid system.

During the project, citizens of Lesotho and South Africans were involved in the construction work. However, South Africans were paid better, which led to a workers' uprising in 1996 that was eventually forcibly suppressed by the Lesotho government. This incident resulted in the death of five striking workers. Construction workers in the area have also contributed to increasing the HIV rate.

One of the main risks associated with damming projects is reservoir induced seismicity , i.e. earthquakes that occur when the reservoirs are filled. In 1995 and 1996 there were several smaller earthquakes near the Katse dam, which among other things destroyed eleven houses. The quake caused a 1.5 kilometer long crack in the earth of the village of Mapeleng, which made several houses uninhabitable. Water sources were also reported to have dried up after the quake.

Lesotho also met its delivery obligations during the 2015/2016 drought , while over a quarter of the country's population was dependent on food deliveries. Basically, the residents of the reservoirs are not allowed to use the water; According to some court rulings, the LHDA has to supply residents of some localities with water.

Economic aspects in Lesotho

In order to make the construction work possible, the project was accompanied by infrastructure development in the country. It was now possible to cross the Highlands on some well-developed roads .

In 1998, the LHWP received 13.6% of the gross domestic product . By 2003 the income was 120 to 150 million Maloti .

The project from a South African perspective

South Africa has an average annual rainfall of 497 millimeters, which is about half the global average. The precipitation is distributed over arid and humid areas, so that most parts of South Africa are scarce. This is the reason why, especially in South Africa, drinking water is dammed up by many dams . However, South Africa's need for water is steadily increasing. While it was 22.4 billion cubic meters in 1990, a water requirement of 25.9 billion cubic meters was forecast for 2010. The maximum amount of usable water is put at a total of 39 billion cubic meters per year, so that more and more dams are planned.

The increase in water demand in the Gauteng region is based not only on the daily necessary water consumption , but also on the wasteful use of water as a resource. In the affluent suburbs of Johannesburg and Pretoria , much of the water is used to fill swimming pools. In some street cafes, water spray systems are occasionally used to make the warm weather on the terrace bearable for the guests. Many water pipes in the region have leaks that allow drinking water to escape into the groundwater. However, due to the industry in the conurbation, the groundwater is of poor quality.

In early 1998, residents of the Johannesburg district of Alexandra criticized the complex project for fear of rising water prices. The sense of the project was called into question because of the leaks. The residents of Alexandras saw more sense in repairing the existing water pipes so that there was no need to import water.

In 2018, there was criticism in South Africa that Lesotho would drain water to generate electricity and channel it into the already filled reservoirs of the Vaal / Oranje system instead of filling the dams in Lesotho, which are important for Gauteng's water supply. The delays in Phase II and the planned Lesotho-Botswana Water Transfer Project were also assessed as a threat to Gauteng's drinking water supply.

literature

  • Peter H. Gleick: The Lesotho Highlands Water Project, Senqu river Basin, Lesotho. In: The World's Water - The Biennial report on Freshwater Resources - 1998-1999. Pp. 93–102, Island Press (English)
  • Bernd Seiffert: “The dam only benefits the government - not us!” History and effects of the Lesotho highland hydraulic engineering project. Published by the ASA program of the Carl Duisberg Society, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-923020-20-1 .

Web links

Commons : Lesotho Highlands Water Project  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Scott Rosenberg, Richard W. Weis fields Michelle Frisbie-Fulton: Historical Dictionary of Lesotho. Scarecrow Press, Lanham, Maryland / Oxford 2004, ISBN 978-0-8108-4871-9 , p. 173.
  2. ↑ a b Scott Rosenberg, Richard W. Weis fields Michelle Frisbie-Fulton: Historical Dictionary of Lesotho. Scarecrow Press, Lanham, Maryland / Oxford 2004, ISBN 978-0-8108-4871-9 , p. 174.
  3. ^ Botswana set to draw water from the Lesotho Highlands Project. In: eNCA. Retrieved March 6, 2016 .
  4. ↑ Description at lhda.org.ls ( Memento from August 24, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
  5. ↑ Statistical data on the buildings of the LHWP at dwa.gov.za ( Memento from September 16, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
  6. ↑ Phase II at lhda.org.ls (English), accessed on September 15, 2016
  7. ↑ Leandi Kolver: Lesotho Highlands Water Project Phase 2 launched. In: Engineering News. Retrieved March 6, 2016 .
  8. ↑ Lesotho: Return after coup. Deutsche Welle dated September 3, 2014, accessed on September 3, 2014
  9. ↑ Nompumelelo Siziba: New Development Bank set to start disbursing loans. (No longer available online.) In: SABC News. March 2, 2016, archived from the original on September 16, 2016 ; accessed on March 6, 2016 .
  10. ↑ Phase I at lhda.org.ls (English), accessed on September 15, 2016
  11. ↑ Call for tenders at hydroworld.com (English), accessed on July 24, 2015, restricted access
  12. ↑ Thomas Scheen : Blood and Water. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of July 24, 2015, accessed on July 24, 2015
  13. ↑ Nomvula misled Zuma. news24.com from September 4, 2016, accessed on September 15, 2016
  14. ↑ Bruce Zagaris: White collar crime: cases and materials. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2015, ISBN 978-1-107-10880-6 , p. 154. Excerpts from books.google.de
  15. ↑ a b c Herbert Moyo: Outcry over delays in completing LHWP II. Lestimes.com of December 18, 2019 (English), accessed on January 2, 2020
  16. ↑ Bame Piet: Three countries sign water supply agreement with Lesotho. mmegi.bw of November 28, 2017 (English), accessed on December 1, 2017
  17. ↑ a b c Lesotho water project failed to cut poverty, critis say. Deutsche Welle dated August 21, 2012, accessed on September 17, 2016
  18. ↑ Earthquakes triggered by Africa's Katse Dam force families to abandon damaged village. internationalrivers.org, accessed on September 16, 2016
  19. ^ Drought devastates Lesotho as water is exported to South Africa. independent.co.uk, August 13, 2016, accessed September 18, 2016
  20. ↑ Alexander Matthews: Katse Dam's deep flood of suffering. Lesotho Times, September 1, 2017, accessed September 2, 2017
  21. ^ Scott Rosenberg, Richard W. Weisfelder, Michelle Frisbie-Fulton: Historical Dictionary of Lesotho. Scarecrow Press, Lanham, Maryland / Oxford 2004, ISBN 978-0-8108-4871-9 , p. 176.
  22. ^ Scott Rosenberg, Richard W. Weisfelder, Michelle Frisbie-Fulton: Historical Dictionary of Lesotho. Scarecrow Press, Lanham, Maryland / Oxford 2004, ISBN 978-0-8108-4871-9 , p. 177.
  23. ^ Peter van Niekerk: Water from the Lesotho Highlands Water Project ... wasted? Daily Maverick May 4, 2018