ARTIFICIAL BREACHINGS OF BOT RIVER ESTUARY

Abstract

During the flood year of 1981 the "Bot River Vlei", one of the largest lagoons in the south-western Cape of the Good Hope was opened to the sea by two artificial breachings of the sand bar which were aimed at lowering the excessively high water levels in the lagoon, and at the re-establishment of estuarine conditions. The Coastal Engineering and Hydraulics Division of the National Research Institute for Oceanology of the CSIR surveyed and monitored the hydrological and sedimentological events in the Bot River lagoon and at the mouth channels in an attempt to formulate a future viable management policy, which had to take into account the conflicting interests of the defenders of continued artificial breachings and of those who advocate conditions of a closed estuary which will eventually change into a coastal freshwater lake.