Paul Fairall is a wetlands and riparian remedial expert. Riparian refers to the banks of a river or other body of water.
Fairall claims that the reason why many of Fourways’ roads have become flooded during the heavy rains across Gauteng is partially due to most of the development in the area being made on existing wetlands.
“I have been fighting development on wetlands for 30 years and the fight is continuous,” he said.
Fairall explained that another major cause of the flooding is that the urban drainage systems in Fourways are unsustainable.
“Rivers quickly become raging torrents during heavy rains because the storm water has nowhere else to go,” he said.
Fairall suggested that, through water management programmes, the water from rainfall needs to be spread into the wetlands where it can be filtered.
“Water management is not an easy task and requires a number of specialists, from engineers to soil scientists, and it also needs to be season-based so that most of the work is done during the dry months,” he said.
The Greater Kyalami Conservancy is taking Fairall’s theory into account in their objection of the K56 road, which will traverse both the wetlands within the conservancy and an important breeding ground for the African bullfrog.
Fourways residents shared their thoughts about what could be causing the flooding via Facebook. One user was in agreement with Fairall and said, “Yes I remember before Monte [Montecasino] even went up, the entire area was a wetland.”
While another user felt that the main issue affecting the flooding was the poor drainage on the sides of Fourways’ roads. “I think it [the flooding in Fourways] is due to no proper drainage on the sides of the roads; I remember as a child the very deep ‘gutters’ on both sides of every single road that was built, one does not see much of those anymore,” she said.
