From South African television broadcaster eNCA:
WATCH: SA facing worst drought in 1,000 years
JOHANNESBURG - A Hydrology expert says his research suggests South Africa is experiencing its worst drought in a thousand years.HT: thanks to a friend.
Dr Gideon Groenewald says small towns suffer worst with many of them having already run out of water.
Groenewald said the drought was a result of a natural drying cyle and no one was to blame.
“We are in a drought that has lasted for about 20 years in short term, 220 years in longer term and it's now going to a 1000 years according to my records....MORE, including video
This guy seems to be something of a folk hero.
From South Africa's Daily Maverick—which itself is, ah, different. Refreshingly so:
‘Oom Gideon’ finds 102,000 litres of water in Graaff-Reinet
By Estelle Ellis• 11 October 2019
Cape Town may have avoided Day Zero, but there are parts of South Africa that have not, particularly several Karoo towns in the Eastern Cape that have run out of water. Boreholes and dams have dried up, taps have run dry and the rain stays away, reducing farms to dust and threatening communities. Maverick Citizen spent the last week in the towns of Graaff-Reinet, Bedford, Makhanda and Adelaide. Many residents wonder why Cape Town’s water crisis got national attention while they are getting very little.
At 11am on Tuesday morning October 1, the Gift of the Givers convoy pulls up on the side of the road to Graaff-Reinet.
Project manager Ali Sablay lines them up. An interlink truck with bottled water and two water tankers bringing water from the borehole his organisation sunk in February. Motorists hoot and wave as they pass by.
The town is on its knees.
The main supply dam for the town, the Nqweba Dam, is empty. All that’s in the dam are hundreds of dead fish rotting in the Karoo sun and even more flies buzzing around
On the side of the N2 there is nothing left but a fence and dust. At the fence line, the skeletons of two lambs lie in the sun.
A white bakkie pulls up. A tall man with a battered leather hat gets out. He walks fast. Shake hands. He spent his 64th birthday driving to Graaff-Reinet.
In the past nine months, he has driven 114,000km finding water for communities ravaged by drought. “Gideon Groenewald,” he introduces himself. “You can call me Oom Gideon.”
What Oom Gideon doesn’t say is that he is a doctor, three times, qualified in palaeontology, hydrology and geology.And via allAfrica in February:
“You can’t buy the title of Oom, but you can work for a doctorate,” he says....MUCH MORE
South Africa: Hydrologist Strikes Again - Dr Groenewald's Unconventional Methods of Finding Water in Drought-Stricken Regions
Dr Gideon Groenewald has an unconventional way of finding water in drought-stricken regions. But while the hydrologist, geologist and palaeontologist's methods may be somewhat unusual, they have resulted in more than 200 boreholes being drilled with 90% accuracy over eight months.
Or back in 2017:Oom Gideon, as he prefers to be called, is part of the Gift of the Givers team which on Tuesday struck pure drinking water at 145m in Makhanda at his first attempt. The find is conservatively estimated to produce 20 000l of water per day, the organisation said.The disaster relief NGO arrived in the town formerly known as Grahamstown last week with truckloads of water for residents of the eastern side of the area. They had been without running water for days after an excessive amount of sediment resulted in the James Kleynhans Water Treatment Plant being unable to operate....MORE
Boreholes save Beaufort West from the drought
Here's the NGO's website.
They don't fool around when they talk about convoys dealing with water:
