Services — GroundTruth

River Health and Water Quality

  • Water quality monitoring programmes

  • Water quality testing

  • River health assessments

  • Buffer zone determination

  • Importance and sensitivity assessments

  • Fish surveys

  • Riparian vegetation assessments

  • River rehabilitation

  • Spill contamination impact assessment

  • Mitigation and management recommendations

  • Monitoring and management of habitat recovery following spill incidents

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Wetlands

  • Wetland delineation and inventories

  • Wetland functional assessments (ecological importance and sensitivity)

  • Wetland health assessments (present ecological state)

  • Wetland rehabilitation planning and implementation

  • Wetland offset planning and recommendations

  • Wetland rehabilitation construction and design

  • Determination of wetland goods and services

  • Wetland Reserve determination studies

  • Comprehensive wetland inventory projects

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Environmental Engineering

  • Freshwater ecosystem rehabilitation planning and design

  • Specialist design and implementation of created wetlands for enhancement of water quality

  • Construction supervision, project management and compilation of tender documentation

  • Soil conservation planning, design and implementation

  • Stormwater management planning and design, incorporating Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems (SUDS) objectives

  • Floodline delineation and specialist surface flow hydraulic modelling

  • Hydraulic modelling for the determination of ecological flow requirements

  • Hydrological modelling and assessments

  • Forestry roads engineering

  • Agricultural land use planning and optimisation

  • Borrow pit management planning and design

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Environmental Support to the Mining Industry

  • Baseline assessments of freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems prior to mining activities

  • Monitoring, mitigation and management of impacts on freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems

  • Mitigation and management plans to reduce impacts and manage pollutants

  • Freshwater and terrestrial ecosystem rehabilitation plans and mine closure plans

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UAV (Drone) Operations

  • Fully licenced and compliant with South African Civil Aviation Authority regulations

  • Photogrammetry surveys

  • High-resolution orthorectified georeferenced imagery

  • Fixed point, repeatable photography

  • Monitoring and evaluation of ecosystems rehabilitation

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Biodiversity

  • Terrestrial and aquatic biodiversity assessments

  • Deskop assessments and reviews

  • In-field fauna and flora surveys

  • Assessment of conservation important species (Red data, rare and endemic species)

  • Classification, mapping and verification of vegetation, land cover and habitats

  • Ecosystem services assessments

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GIS and Biophysical Spatial Planning

  • Mapping and modelling the biological and physical environment

  • Habitat/species sensitivity mapping

  • Spatial Development Plans (SDP) and Frameworks (SDF)

  • Biodiversity conservation plans and sector plans

  • Biophysical constraints and limitations studies

  • Strategic Environmental Assessments (SEA)

  • Local Area Plans (LAP)

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Ecological Water Requirements and Reserve Determination Studies

  • Determination of the aquatic environmental Reserve

  • Environmental flow requirements to maintain ecological condition

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Hydrology

  • Hydrological modelling

  • Catchment management plans (CMP)

  • Land use change impacts on water resources and mitigation thereof

  • Development impacts on river hydrology

  • Stormwater management plans and mitigation of stormflow impacts on receiving watercourses

  • Water conservation and water demand management plans

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Advanced Ecosystem Modelling

  • Bayesian Network modelling to predict environmental risk

  • Ecological cost-benefit analyses to optimise resource allocation and project success rates

  • Integrating multiple source-stressor-recetor-response modelling

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Aquatic and Terrestrial Biodiversity Assessments

  • Specialist studies on the presence and health of wetland, river and terrestrial habitats and species on the site

  • Environmental management plans

  • Biophysical constraints and limitations studies to inform development planning and basic assessment or EIA process

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Diatom Analysis

  • Diatom analyses services are available for the SPI (specific pollution sensitivity index), BDI (Biological Diatom index) and SADI (South African Diatom index) methods.

  • Depending on the requirements, it is possible to provide some indication of trophic statuses as well as organic and inorganic pollution tolerances

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Training

  • miniSASS Training Course

  • Introduction to Aquatic Ecology

  • South African Scoring System version 5 (SASS5)

  • Advanced EcoClassification Modelling Courses (e.g. MIRAI, FRAI, VEGRAI, IHI)

  • Advanced EcoStatus and EIS determination Courses

  • QGIS Courses

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Spill Management and Landfill Site Monitoring

  • Spill contamination and impact assessments

  • Mitigation and management recommendations

  • Monitoring and habitat recovery following spill incidents

  • Hazardous land fill site monitoring

  • Water quality monitoring

  • Aquatic biomonitoring

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Environmental Impact Assessments (Specialist Input)

  • Aquatic and terrestrial biodiversity assessments

  • Environmental management plans

  • Scoping phase site biophysical constraints and limitations studies to inform development planning and basic assessment or EIA process

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Environmental Data Management

  • Environmental monitoring data gaps and needs analyses

  • Development of environmental databases, inlcuding spatial data management

  • Development of on-line data management, spatial display and data interpretation systems

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Corporate Social Investment

  • Facilitation of river care initiatives

  • Environmental-based community development programmes

  • Training to provide skills for sustainable livelihoods

  • Assist communities to build resilience into their landscapes

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Research

  • Lead researchers on numerous long-term research projects within government and non-government sectors including the Water Research Commission, government departments, municipalities, mining, forestry and agriculture

  • Collaborative research with national / international specialists

  • Collaborative research with universities and other entities

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Development and Sale of Industry Tools

  • Research and development of new tools

  • Adaptation of international tools for local use

  • Developed and refined through research and applied use within the industry

  • Available tools and products

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