The river is characterised by highly intermittent runoff, but is regulated to optimise water usage.

Near the confluence of the Harts and Vaal Rivers at Delportshoop a major irrigation system, the Vaal-Harts Scheme was set up in 1933 as part of the national reconstruction effort after the Depression.

[5] Around the northern part of the Scheme lie the settlements of Pampierstad, Motsweding, Mokgareng, Manthestad and Taung, all with mostly Tswana speaking residents.

[6] On 31 March 1902, during the final months of the Second Boer War, the Battle of Harts River, also known as "Battle of Boschbult", was fought between the Boers and the British forces near the confluence of the Harts River and the Brak Spruit, one of its dry tributaries.

Noble Minerals, in cooperation with the local Ba-Ga-Maidi tribe has set up an operation to exploit the alluvial diamonds within 20 square kilometres of diamantiferous gravels of the river system, near Taung.

The pan is 11 km long and 3.5 km wide, and it is named either after Frederick Hugh Barber FRGS, who hunted along the Harts River in 1875, or after the barbel (baber in the Afrikaans language), a species of catfish found in South African rivers.

[10] In 1913, Jan Christiaan Smuts, who owned a farm near the southern end of the pan, provided the labour and his foreman, Mr M. S. Basson, supervised the digging of a channel which diverted water from the Harts River into the pan, which lies about 9 m lower than the river.