Mismanagement of waste water treatment from urban zones within the Hartbeespoort Dam catchment area is largely to blame, having distorted the food web with over 280 tons of phosphate and nitrate deposits.

[4] The town of Hartbeespoort is situated close to the dam wall and the villages of Kosmos, Melodie, Ifafi, Meerhof and The Coves, Pecanwood, Westlake and several other estates can be found alongside its shores.

[6] As early as 1909 there were test holes drilled at the bottom of the river to determine whether the rock formation was suitable for building such a huge dam.

The size of the catchment area was calculated, the water flow was measured and estimates made of the potentially irrigable land.

Initially, work was delayed pending a court judgment with General Hendrik Schoeman and a certain Mr. Marshevin about the expropriation of their properties.

In his book "Agter die Magalies", Bertus de Beer argues that the government acted in a heavy-handed manner to resolve a number of issues surrounding the construction of the dam.

It has a surface area of 20 square kilometres (7.7 sq mi), and its normal range of annual water level fluctuation is 0.8 metres (2.6 ft).

[9] A single-laned, tarmac road skirts the water's edge on the north side; along its route it passes through a 56.6 m long tunnel and also crosses the dam wall.

[12] [13] [14] The Dam suffers severe eutrophication, in 2003 resulting from high phosphate and nitrate concentrations in the Crocodile River, the major inflow.

[16] The extreme level of eutrophication is evident in excessive growth of microscopic algae and cyanobacteria, and macrophytes such as water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes).

[19] This is driven to a certain extent by the decline of data capture and processing systems that underpin water resource management in South Africa.