Cape Town’s rivers and wetlands
Cape Town’s rivers and wetlands are one of the most beautiful – and important – features of our landscape.
Important rivers and wetlands
Our fresh waters play an essential role in providing, carrying and cleaning much of our city’s water. They are also home to an incredible range of plants and creatures.
Fast fact
Wetlands include lakes, marshes and seasonal wetlands. In South Africa many wetlands are known as vleis. The water found in wetlands can be saltwater, freshwater or a mix (brackish).
There used to be many wetlands in Cape Town and in the Cape Flats area in particular. Most of these were seasonal – they flooded in winter and were dry in summer. The seasonal wetlands in Cape Town have been the most impacted by conversion to agriculture and drainage to enable urban development. The Isoetes Vlei at
Edith Stephens Nature Reserve and seasonal salt marshes at Blouvlei are two examples of our remaining natural wetlands on the Cape Flats.
Many of the smaller wetlands have also been drained or filled in, while others, like Zeekoevlei and
Princess Vlei have become permanent lakes because they receive water from stormwater drains. They are quite beautiful to explore.
The report below provides information on the condition, importance and threats to wetlands in Cape Town, with a focus on seasonal wetlands.
Important rivers in Cape Town
- Little River and Big Lotus River – these feed
Zeekoevlei
- Diep River, Zand River, Keysers River and Westlake River – these feed
Zandvlei
- Silvermine River – reaches the sea at Fish Hoek
- Lourens River and Sir Lowry’s Pass River near Somerset West
- Steenbras River – feeds the Steenbras dams
- Eerste River and Kuils River – flow into False Bay near Macassar
- Salt River and its tributaries, which include the Liesbeek River, Black River and Elsiekraal River
- Disa River in Hout Bay – provides water to the Kloof Nek Treatment Works
- Diep River – drains the Malmesbury area and passes
Rietvlei before reaching the sea at Milnerton
For a birds-eye view of the City’s important biodiversity areas and wetlands, please see our
Terrestrial and Aquatic (Wetlands) Biodiversity Network Map.
Inland water quality
Cape Town's long-term aim is to be a water-sensitive city where rivers, wetlands, canals and streams are accessible, inclusive and safe to use.
Read the full Inland Water Quality Reports for more information on the current situation:
For enquiries, email:
Inland.WaterQuality@capetown.gov.za.
Water Quality Dashboard
The Inland Water Quality Dashboard is a user-friendly platform that allows you to view and monitor the quality of the City's inland water bodies.
VIEW DASHBOARDCatchment Management Forums
Catchment management forums are being established and rolled out across priority catchments in Cape Town. These forums are important platforms for collaboration, partnering and dialogue between various stakeholders, which is necessary as we build water sensitive, climate resilient and liveable catchments and waterways.
Read the
Guidelines for Catchment Management Forums in Cape Town for more information about how these forums work.
Fauna and flora
Healthy rivers and wetlands have amazingly high levels of biodiversity – in other words, an extremely rich variety of plants and animals.
Because seasonal wetlands change from season to season, they provide different habitats for different species. Permanent vleis have a more stable ecosystem and you can find more common (but often invasive) species in these ones.
Here are just some of the species found in or near these water systems (some permanently, some only briefly at certain times of the year):
- Trees, like Bladder-nut and Small Ironwood
- Shrubs, like fynbos, Star-apple and Wild Cotton
- Marginal vegetation, like Arum Lily, Bracken fern, Restios
- Freshwater fish, like Cape Kurper and Cape Galaxias
- Cape Clawless Otter
- Ghost Crab
- Table Mountain Ghost Frog – critically endangered
- Western Leopard Toad – while terrestrial in nature, the critically-endangered western leopard toad visits ponds for a brief period once a year to breed
- Pied Kingfisher
- Fish Eagle
- Pelican
- Flamingo
Fast fact
The hippopotamus was once found all over the Cape Peninsula. Today
False Bay Nature Reserve’s Rondevlei Section is home to the only hippopotami found in the south-western Cape. These hippos were introduced in 1981 and 1983.
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