In southern Africa our focus is water quality security and, in our case-study, we are operating at two sites; the Kafue River Basin in Zambia and the uMngeni River Basin on the eastern seaboard of South Africa. The uMngeni River Basin covers about 4,400 km² and the river is about 250 km long. This relatively small, seasonally fed basin supplies 4.5 million people and South Africa’s second largest regional economy with its water. The Kafue River is a major tributary of the Zambezi and drains a basin of 155,000 km².
Both basins are at risk from activities that are compromising water quality security. In the uMngeni it is poor sanitation service provision and industrial pollution emanating from the urban and peri-urban centres, and high nutrient loading in agricultural areas. In the Kafue it is industrial pollution emanating from the copper mines in Zambia.