Zandvlei Trust

Water quality TWG.

CAPE Estuaries Programme: Development of an Estuary Management Plan (EMP) for Zandvlei Estuary, Muizenberg, Cape Town.

Abrieviated outcome of this first workshop on 12/10/2010.

A combined Water Quality and Hydrodynamics workshop was took place as there are a number of overlaping issues which are common and need to be finalised and agreed to by those present. Management of the estuary mouth open and closing, ingress of sea water into the vlei and various issues with monitoring and data recording and analysis for management purposes were reviewed. Management of the water levels in Central Pan in the Reserve need to be implemented to attract wading birds back which were previously present. This would be relatively easy to do.

We went through the Management Strategies and Operational Objectives and a few chages to wording were made. Some discussions about methods and equipment to measure and monitor the salinity of the water in the vlei tool place. Talcott Percent indicated that he will soon have the dates of the opening and closing of the mouth available in spreadsheet format.
Monitoring of fish needs to be done on a monthly basis for a year to determine a reference to measure future fish species and movement. Funding for a student needs to be found so this info may be captureed.
Methods of water chemistry measurement combined with salinity records were discussed and the realistic outcomes were suggested by Robert Siebritz.

Abrieviated outcome of this first workshop on 07/09/2010.

Lynn Jackson introducing the agenda for the workshop on 07/09/2010 and re-iterating the vision and management objectives agreed to by the participants.

Additional people attending were Councillor Dave Dalton, Sue Gie and Richard Bowden.

Candice Haskins took us through the monitoring, anaylsis and reporting the City of Cape Town currently conducts on a monthly basis.
It is accepted that the estuary water body has to be managed for maximum biodiversity of species to remain healthy and sustainable for the short and long term use by all user groups. This is a complex and season process with living fauna and flora.
There are issues which need closer monitoring, the solutions to which we have to explore and try and implement with reduced budgets. There are stats and monitoring info which is not integrated across depts within the City which could be implemented with additional funding or combined budget spending.

Objectives

1. TOR Water Quality WG

a) To review current management measures and propose changes / additions / alternatives which will facilitate the achievement of the relevant Management Objective:

“To prevent, reduce or minimise pollution from all sources so as to be able to restore the water quality to a standard suitable for supporting natural resources and human recreation".

b) To develop Operational Objectives / Indicators / Standards for water and sediment quality and an associated Monitoring Programme to assess the effectiveness of the management measures.

c) To identify information gaps and studies which may need to be undertaken in order to give effect to the objectives.

2. Members

Candice Haskins
Yazeed Petersen / Mulelo Tshikote
Celeste Lesch
Robert Siebritz
Mjikisile Vulindlu
Busiswa Bele
Gavin Lawson
Ommund Sivertsen
Cassandra Sheasby.