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The MBSP freshwater assessment provided here is meant to serve as an important

land-use decision support tool, and the foundation for the development of any Bioregional Plans within Mpumalanga. The summarised shapefile has two important fields, a Category field, which recognised broad categories defined in the Biodiversity Act and bioregional plan guidelines, and a Subcategory field which recognises sub-categories of the Category field. The broad categories recognised are: Critical Biodiversity Areas (CBAs), Ecological Support Areas (ESAs), Other Natural Areas (ONA), and Heavily Modified. The Subcategory field allows for greater flexibility in applying the land-use guidelines and mitigation hierarchy. The Subcategories should be used in conjunction with the MBSP Handbook, and NFEPA Implementation manual.

Predominantly derived from the NFEPA project. NFEPA was developed using a

Systematic Biodiversity Planning. For more information on NFEPA, see Nel, J.L.,

Driver, A., Strydon, W.F., Maherry, A., Petersen, C., Hill, L., Roux, D.J., Nienaber,

S., Van Deventer, H., Swartz, S. & Smith-Adao, L.B. (2011). Atlas of Freshwater

Ecosystem Priority Areas in South Africa. WRC Report No.TT 500/11. Water

Research Commission, Pretoria.

NFEPA was a three-year partnership project between the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI), CSIR, Water Research Commission (WRC), Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA), Department of Water Affairs (DWA), Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF), SouthAfrican Institute of Aquatic Biodiversity (SAIAB) and South African National Parks (SANParks). NFEPA maps provide strategic spatial priorities for conserving South Africa’s freshwater ecosystems and supporting sustainable use of water resources. These strategic spatial priorities are known as Freshwater Ecosystem Priority Areas, or ‘FEPAs’. NFEPA maps were developed using the principles of systematic biodiversity planning. The NFEPA maps and supporting information form part of a comprehensive approach to sustainable and equitable development of South Africa’s scarce water resources. For integrated water resources planning, NFEPA provides guidance on how many rivers, wetlands and estuaries, and which ones, should remain in a natural or near-natural condition to support the water resource protection goals of the National

Water Act (Act 36 of 1998). NFEPA products are therefore directly applicable to the National Water Act, feeding into Catchment Management Strategies, water resource classification, reserve determination, and the setting and monitoring of resource quality objectives. NFEPA products are also directly relevant to the National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act (Act 10 of 2004), informing both the listing of threatened freshwater ecosystems and the process of bioregional planning provided for by this Act. NFEPA products support the implementation of the National Environmental Management: Protected Areas Act (Act 57 of 2003) by informing the expansion of the protected area network. Both the NFEPA spatial and document products were considered for the MBSP Freshwater Assessment. Many of the FEPA spatial products were used. These included MBSP: CBA Rivers (based on FEPA rivers and free-flowing rivers), CBA Wetlands (based on FEPA wetlands), ESA Wetland Clusters (FEPA wetland clusters), and ESA Wetlands (all other non-FEPA wetlands). The MTPA created an updated land-cover using SPOT 2010 imagery. This data, together with high-resolution aerial imagery, was used to update and clean some of the features.

Available documentation: See these two documents.

MTPA. 2014. Mpumalanga Biodiversity Sector Plan Handbook. Compiled by Lötter M.C., Cadman, M.J. and Lechmere-Oertel R.G. Mpumalanga Tourism & Parks Agency, Mbombela (Nelspruit).

Lötter, M.C. 2014. Technical Report for the Mpumalanga Biodiversity Sector Plan – MBSP. Mpumalanga Tourism & Parks Agency, Nelspruit.

Driver, A., Nel, J.L., Snaddon, K., Murray, K., Roux, D.J., Hill, L., Swartz, E.R., Manuel, J. and Funke, N. (2011). Implementation Manual for Freshwater Ecosystem Priority Areas. WRC Report TT 1801/1/11, Water Research Commission, Pretoria.

Nel, J.L., Driver, A., Strydon, W.F., Maherry, A., Petersen, C., Hill, L., Roux, D.J., Nienaber, S., Van Deventer, H., Swartz, S. & Smith-Adao, L.B. (2011). Atlas of Freshwater Ecosystem Priority Areas in South Africa. WRC Report No.TT 500/11. Water Research Commission, Pretoria.

SANS 1878

FGDC-STD-001-1998