Rivers for Africa eFlows Consulting (Pty) ltd consists of a small team specialising in the assessment of Environmental Flow Requirements, aquatic impact assessments, Classification and monitoring. This highly specialized company focuses on the management and coordination of large multi-disciplinary studies with specific emphasis on Environmental Flow Requirements and related studies. As such, Rivers for Africa has formed many agreements and regularly work with a team consisting of associates, some of them which are listed in the Associates web page.

Rivers for Africa and its associates have undertaken most of the large Environmental Flow Requirement studies within South Africa, and also in many other parts of Africa. The key areas of expertise provided by Rivers for Africa include:

• Project managing and coordinating Environmental Flow Requirement studies within integrated Water Resources Management
• Application of Environmental Water Requirement Studies as part of the Reserve Determination (required by the South African Water Act 1998)
• Development of Environmental Flow Requirement Methods
• Using scenario based approaches to assess impacts of different flow scenarios such as for hydro-electric schemes.
• Capacity building and training
• Management and coordination of specialist (aquatic) components of Environmental Impact Assessment
• Ecological Classification of aquatic systems
• Project management and coordination of Classification studies required as part of the National Water Resources Classification.
• Design and management of monitoring programmes.

Rivers for Africa has a relationship with the Institute for Water Research (IWR), Rhodes University. Since 1997, Delana Louw has, as part of IWR Source to Sea and Water for Africa, been a research officer in the IWR.

Background

Rivers for Africa was formed in June 2000. Previously, Rivers for Africa functioned as the Aquatic Ecology division in Water for Africa Environmental, Engineering and Management Consultants (Pty) Ltd (Water for Africa)  which split into separate divisions to better serve the need of clients.