21/10/2025
Advancing water intelligence in South Africa’s catchments
Since 2024, our team at Contour Enviro Group has been quietly building a Digital Water Calculator a data driven tool designed to measure and visualise water gains achieved through clearing invasive alien plants.
While the calculator hasn’t yet been released publicly, early results from a small sample in the Steenbras Quaternary Catchment (G40A) show encouraging outcomes:
- 312 million litres of potential water gains
- 62 cleared sites across 254 hectares
- 16 invasive species removed
These insights are powered by published methodologies (Le Maitre et al., 2016) and demonstrate how technology can quantify ecological restoration at scale.
We were excited to see WWF-SA and partners recently release their own spreadsheet tool, it’s good to see conservation organisations converging on data led approaches to water security. Collaboration, not competition, will help our sector move faster.
Our next step is refining Contour’s calculator for public and partner use integrating AI, geospatial mapping, and live dashboards for conservation managers.
Together, we’re shaping a smarter, more transparent future for ecosystem restoration.
For more information: https://www.grasshoppertech.co.za/reports/water-gains-insights.html
