Limpopo learners test water to protect their communities

Source article published in May 2023 

In Limpopo, school children are helping to protect their environment by checking the water quality of local rivers and wells. This project is part of a bigger plan to teach and empower communities about protecting and saving water.

What is the problem?

Water is a critically important but all too limited resource in South Africa. Its quality is often polluted by poorly maintained sewage systems and run-off from farms. In many low-income areas in Limpopo province, communities struggle to get clean water, or even know if their water is safe to drink, placing their health at risk. 

How are they fixing it?

Starting in 2019, a team of researchers led by Professor Jacqueline Goldin from the University of the Western Cape (UWC) started the “Diamonds on the Soles of Our Feet” project to address water pollution and scarcity in communities in the Hout Catchment Area, northwest of Polokwane. The project works with local communities and young people to monitor and improve water resources.  

What’s making it work?

• Community-led efforts to educate students. The Diamonds on the Soles of Our Feet project trained community members as "citizen scientists" who, in turn, taught school kids how to check water quality in rivers and rural wells. The children learned to use freshwater test kits and the Stream Assessment Scoring System (SASS) to check water health. Getting students active in the process of researching water quality and levels helps set them up to become future scientists, environmentalists, and protectors of water sources. 

• Monitoring water levels and quality. Students and citizen scientists were taught to collect information on indicators like phosphates and nitrates, which are pollutants from sewage and agriculture, and to measure whether there are lots of different creatures like snails and worms, which is a sign of river ecosystem health. They were also taught how to measure how rainfall affects water levels in boreholes.  

• Local action with global links. The data collected by students and citizen scientists was shared with global organisations that monitor water health, like EarthWatch Europe, and the United Nations SDG 6.3 water portal.

Acknowledgements:

Soruce article: ****Limpopo learners keep tabs on river water quality | GroundUp by Ashraf Hendricks

Photograph: Ashraf Hendricks