Earlier on the website it was reported that Sam Werner, a GEM Ambassador student from the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point, recently spent time in Cape Town to develop a ‘community-based’ approach to analyzing the Liesbeek. The survey technique is relatively simple, although anyone using the tool will need some training in order to use it effectively. We hope to use the tool from time to time, and also hope that it will be useful to other interest groups in South Africa who might wish to monitor rivers in their local environment.
The results of the analysis are interesting, and in many ways confirm the obvious. The tool is strongly biased towards the extent and quality of habitat in a river. In other words, canalized sections of the Liesbeek score poorly. The map below gives a brief picture of how different stretches (lengths of about 500m) differ from each other.
River quality along the Liesbeek – July 2007
Unfortunately the streets are not identified on the map so you will need to do a bit of thinking to identify the actual stretch. We will rectify this problem later.
