Rainy week boosts dam levels

• The contents of Namibia’s main current irrigation dam, the Hardap Dam near Mariental, have more than doubled over the past week.
• The Namibia Water Corporation (NamWater) yesterday announced that the Hardap Dam received an inflow of about 116.5 million cubic metres of water since Monday last week, boosting the dam’s contents to 188 million cubic metres by yesterday.
• The dam’s level was at 63.9% of its storage capacity of 294.6 million cubic metres yesterday.

At the start of last week, the Hardap Dam’s level stood at 24.3% of its storage capacity.

The dam’s level was at only 5.5% at the start of this year.

The Swakoppoort Dam south-east of Okahandja received an inflow of 39.3 million cubic metres since the start of last week, bringing its level to 101.81% of its storage capacity yesterday – compared to 39.9% a week earlier.

The Swakoppoort Dam started to spill water on Saturday, when its level reached 105% of its storage capacity.

At the start of this year, the Swakoppoort Dam was filled to 15.9% of its storage capacity.

The Swakoppoort, Von Bach and Omatako dams, from which water being supplied to Windhoek is sourced, received combined inflows of 63.8 million cubic metres since Monday last week, NamWater reported.

At the start of last week, the three dams’ combined level stood at 35.7% of their total storage capacity of 154.4 million cubic metres.

By yesterday, the Swakoppoort, Von Bach and Omatako dams were storing 119 million cubic metres of water, translating to 77% of their combined storage capacity.

At the end of last year, the Swakoppoort, Von Bach and Omatako dams’ total contents were 15.1 million cubic metres, or 9.8% of their combined storage capacity.

With the Omaruru River having come down in flood during the past week, the Omaruru River Delta Dam (Omdel) east of Henties Bay received 9.2 million cubic metres of water, bringing its level to 26.3% of its storage capacity yesterday.

The main current dam levels reported by NamWater yesterday, with the dams’ readings at the corresponding time a year ago in brackets, are:

Swakoppoort 101.8% (38.6%)
Von Bach 58.2% (11.1%)
Omatako 61.5% (0.4%)
Hardap 63.9% (11.7%)
Neckartal 88.3% (83.5%)
Naute 55.8% (39.3%)
Oanob 56.8% (42.3%)
Dreihuk 4% (empty)
Otjivero Main 5.7% (4.5%)
Otjivero Silt 12.9% (1.7%)
Tilda Viljoen 11% (4.5%)
Daan Viljoen 77.3% (5.5%)
Olushandja 61.2% (36.6%)
Friedenau 56.2% (55%)
Goreangab 101.8% (102.1%)
Omdel 26.3% (empty)