ASSOCIATES

The nature of River for Africa’s work requires a wide range of multi-disciplinary specialists covering engineering, hydrology, social and ecological skills. As such, Rivers for Africa works with a team of associates who provides the specialist inputs required. Rivers for Africa specialises in the management and integration of these different aspects as well as providing specialist inputs.

Greg Huggins of the now called Nomad Consulting has always been linked to Rivers for Africa since the initial company called IWR Enivonmental was established. More information on Nomad consulting can be found on www.nomadconsulting.co.za.

Mr. Greg Huggins is the Managing Director of NOMAD Socio Economic Management and Consulting (Pty) Ltd. He has 30 years of experience in the research and consultancy fields and specializes in resettlement and development planning, socio-economic impact assessment, strategic environmental assessment, resource economics and utilisation analysis, IFC compliance auditing and assessment, socio-economic survey research, public participation and facilitation, socio-economic analysis and applied research and consultancy with respect to corporate social responsibility planning.

Greg has been the project leader for social impact and resettlement studies for dams and infrastructure projects, a suite of mining houses as well as bio-energy firms, housing projects and port developments. These have included operations in Angola, Botswana, Cameroon, Congo (both the Republic of as well as the Democratic Republic), Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritania, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

Some of the other key specialists and their firms that regularly work with Rivers for Africa are provided below.

Systems and Yield modelling:

Water Resources Planning (WRP): WRP leads the field in systems and yield modelling including the
development of the models. They have worked as a team with Rivers for Africa on many projects and provides the bridge between the ecological field and the engineering/hydrological field.

Eco-hydraulic modelling:

Streamflow Solutions CC is a sole member consulting firm based in East London in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Dr Birkhead has a BSc and PhD (Civil Engineering) from the University of the Witwatersrand and has been working in the fileld of environmental hydraulics since 1990.. Dr Birkhead has played an integral role over the past two decades in the development and application of hydraulics in southern Africa for the assessment of ecological flows in rivers. He has worked extensively with ecologists, geomorphologists and hydrologists on approximately fifty ecological flow assessments involving numerous rivers and various project teams. Streamflow Solutions also provides specialist input for environmental impact assessments for rivers and wetlands (data collection and hydrodynamic modelling), recently collaborating on assessments for large rivers including the Nile (Sudan), Kafue (Zambia), Zambezi (Mozambique) and Orange (South Africa).

Diatoms and specialist reporting

Koekemoer Aquatic Serices (KAS) is a closed corporation specialising in aquatic sciences, primarily aquatic health, fisheries sciences and riverine eco-systems. The CC is 50% HDI owned and the memebers are Shael and Johan Koekemoer. They have operated as individual aquatic health consultants respectively for the past ten years and formed Koekemoer Aquatic Services in September 2004. They have worked mainly in South Africa and Namibia, offering services and expertise in lake management, biomanipulation, stock and yield assessments as well as project management, Reserve determinations, biomonitoring and diatom analysis and assessments.

Shael has worked for many years as part of the now Rivers for Africa and is involved in all of River for Africa's Environmental Flow Requirement studies as diatom expert and assistant to Delana in the coordination of these studies.

Stakeholder and Public Participation

Anelle Lötter is a certified Public Participation practitioner (registered with the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2) with more than 20 years’ relevant experience. She has worked in all sectors (agriculture, water, energy, mining, oil, gas, etc) in South Africa and has led several public participation processes according to the IFC standards in West Africa (Ghana, Congo, DRC, Mali, Burkina Faso) mostly in mining. She designs and implements stakeholder engagement, public participation, communication and awareness creation projects whilst managing multi-project schedules, budgets and achieving project goals. She compiles and coordinates the production of a wide variety of publications transferring scientific and technical material in non-technical language to readers representing all spheres of society. She facilitates meetings in sensitive situations with stakeholders, and prepares information in lay person’s language for public comment. She facilitates the establishment of functional and representative community forums, grievance procedures and has the ability to handle community conflicts.

Aquatic biota: Fish and Macroinvertebrates

Clean Stream Biological Services form part of the Clean Stream group of companies, specialising in a range of services. A team of specialists renders the services from offices in Pretoria, Witbank and Malelane. In addition and where necessary, a multi-disciplinary team of specialists is utilised for projects that require additional specialist technical input. Clean Stream Biological Serivces specialises in biomonitoring, biodiversity management plans and reserve determinations. Dr Piet Kotze, one of the Clean Stream directors, has been involved in various Reserve Determination Projects with Rivers for Africa over the past few years, specifically dealing with fish and aquatic macroinvertebrate specialist input.

Terrestrial, riparian fauna and aquatic macroinertebrates

Dr Andrew Deacon (PhD Zoology) worked as a researcher at Scientific Services, South African National Parks (SANParks, 1989 - 2012). He was initially employed as an aquatic ecologist to coordinate the multidisciplinary KNP Rivers Research Programme, but later was tasked to manage the monitoring and research programmes for small vertebrate ecology in 15 South African National Parks (including Addo-, Kalahari- and Kruger NP). As a recognized scientist in the fields of Ichthyology and Terrestrial Ecology, he is currently engaged as a specialist consultant regarding ecological studies. He was involved in numerous research programmes and projects, including Environmental Water Requirement Studies (14 projects) and hydro-electrical projects (6 projects). Apart from this, he also completed 40 Aquatic ecosystem projects, 82 EIA specialist reports (aquatic or terrestrial ecology) and 7 Faunal and ecosystems monitoring projects. Apart from multiple environmental projects in South Africa, he has worked on assignments in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zambia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Swaziland. In Swaziland he was involved with the 1999 Maguga Dam EIA (Specialist study and biomonitoring – Birds and Mammals).

Water quality:

Scherman Colloty & Associates (SC&A) is a small specialist consulting firm based in Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape. The two partners have 27 years combined experience in the environmental and water quality assessment fields, with a diverse suite of clients based nationally and internationally. The business is focused on providing clients with a broad range of expertise relating to water resource and environmental management. Dr Patsy Scherman has a Ph.D in Biotechnology and has been actively involved in a number of Reserve determination projects over the years, having been the project technical team manager or water quality specialist on a number of these projects. The management includes the coordination of technical teams, including socio-economics, wetland, groundwater, estuary and river teams. She has also developed and managed integrated environmental and water quality monitoring programmes and conducts water specialist studies for EIAs.

During the last 10 years, Dr Scherman has, as the water quality specialist, been involved in all of the Environmental Flow Requirement studies managed by Delana Louw of Rivers for Africa eFlows Consulting.

Riparian vegetation and wetlands

Estuaries