Page 10 - Issue 2 Kyalami Connect

busIness matters
lifestyle
Kyalami Estates
Brand Manual

BY JAMES CLARKE, PICTURES BY MARY BROADLEY
OUR FICKLE
Kyalami Estates Corporate Brand Bible Behaviour WATER SUPPLIES 15
15
The impact of floods on our
2.0 Establishing the Visual Layout: Signature on green layouts
vulnerable ecosystem.

oUr fickle water

The signature can also be placed
on multiply on the green primary
colour. It is set to a 3rd size of sUPPlies
height.

bY James CLarKe, PICtures bY marY brOaDLeY

he magnificent rains we had in urban areas with all their non-absorbent wide area and shallow depth, a third of
Gauteng earlier this year could concrete and tarred surfaces, runoff its water evaporates annually.
not have come at a better time. throughout the rainy season can be as
tWe’d already had fair summer high as 80 percent. But high-density While small dams in housing estates
rains which gave rural people who have urban areas take up very little of the are valuable shock absorbers during
no tractors and rely on draught oxen, a country’s 1,2 million square kilometres. floods, they too are becoming
chance to plough and sow fairly early. The volumes we witnessed between shallower and shallower. One estate
Some years, they have to wait as late February and April were vital to the Vaal in Greater Johannesburg spent around
as January, which misses a lot of the Dam (Gauteng’s main supply), as well as to R1-million to dredge its two heavily
Cheryl Muller: Action coach,
growing season. the Vaal’s lower dams and to Hartbeespoort silted lakes. Months later, silt from
business coach
whose water feeds a critically important local developments, including highway
The value of the later rains had crop-growing area. widening, totally filled one lake and
another dimension. Our summer rain was halved the size of the other.
obviously vital to agriculture. It was also However, there was a hidden cost.
economically important to those of us Many of us witnessed the volumes The total runoff from every river in South
who are heavily invested in our gardens, sluicing down our stormwater drains. Africa (53 billion cubic metres) would fill
and to our estates that spend millions By the time that water hit the open only a third of Kariba Dam. The
on landscape gardening. countryside, its velocity and volume country’s biggest dam, the Gariep on
tore away at the rivers banks and the the Orange River, could, years ago, store
But those marvellous storms were of topsoil. As the muddy water entered the 6 billion cubic metres. It is now greatly
much wider importance. Only towards Vaal Dam, its flow rapidly slowed down, reduced by silting and, of that volume,
the end of summer does the ground allowing the silt to settle and reduce the 2 billion cubic metres are lost annually
become saturated and so we get what dam’s depth and storage capacity. due to evaporation.
we so badly need - runoff.
On average, the Vaal Dam’s 340 sq km One wonders that more damage was
Generally in Gauteng, of every 100 surface is, nowadays, only 3 metres deep not done during the late storms.
drops of rain that fall, only three or four - not a great deal deeper than the deep
find their way to the dams. Although, in end of a swimming pool. Having such a There were times when the estates

8 Kyalami Estates • CONNECT • Issue 2 • 2020