AfriGIS had been awarded a contract to provide GIS technology and services to the Nuclear Waste Systems (NWS) Department of the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (NECSA). The NWS Department is currently engaged in the safety assessment of Thabana, a nuclear waste storage/disposal facility at Pelindaba, and Vaalputs, the national nuclear waste disposal facility situated in the Northern Cape.

"To obtain scientific information on the demography and the land and water use around these facilities, it is necessary to make use of geographical data and attribute datasets," explains AfriGIS Project Manager Shanta Vadeveer. "These datasets need to be manipulated and transformed into meaningful information for reporting purposes."

AfriGIS provided a range of services for this project, which included data identification, acquisition of suitable data, GIS analysis and interpretation, and the presentation of the relevant information as maps and reports.

"We tackled the project in two phases, beginning with Thabana and followed by Vaalputs," Vadeveer continues. "The methodology for both phases were the same, however, and concentrated on procuring the data regarding the demography, land use/cover and water use for each area. These datasets were spatially integrated individually with NWS relevant field survey data and other spatial data sets."

Besides assisting in data identification, AfriGIS delivered a range of maps to the NWS, together with relevant descriptive reports. These included A4 demographic maps, an A4 land use map, and an A4 water use map.

AfriGIS

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magnus@afrigis.co.za

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