The Department of Water Affairs has joined forces with the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) to make the Vaal Dam the first dam in South Africa to use internet social media to disseminate information via facebook and twitter.

Following information on the Vaal Dam is one of the latest developments aimed at making water related information interesting and accessible via social media sites. Thanks to the joint project between (DWA) and CSIR Meraka Institute, the initiative uses Internet of Things technologies to communicate information on the Dam.

The term, Internet of Things, refers to the connectedness of everyday objects to the Internet. Everything is connected to everything else - any place, any time, any thing, any one.

As a demonstration of the application of Internet of Things technologies, CSIR researcher Laurie Butgereit is using the Beachcomber platform to take regularly updated numeric information - at 30-minute intervals - on the capacity of the Vaal Dam (made available at http://www.dwa.gov.za/Hydrology/FFDamOpt.aspx?stationno=C1R001).

Butgereit's program then automatically prepares this information for dissemination through a number of channels in a non-obtrusive, socially acceptable way. These channels include Twitter (@vaal_dam) and Facebook. Shortly after going live, more than 100 people started following @vaal_dam; 100 Facebook friends signed up.

As South Africa celebrates National Water Week 21- 27 March, Butgereit has this period as a launch pad to draw further interest, "Many followers are water-oriented, for example, waterkeeper and livingwater. We hope to attract more followers"

Beachcomber also prepares the information for dissemination on request via MxIT, Jabber, Google Earth and email.

"We are proud of the quality of information on our website and have been very pleased to see how this Vaal Dam Internet of Things project has helped this information reach an even wider audience," said Mava Scott, Chief Director of Communication Services, Department of Water Affairs.

Butgereit's program searches for and includes additional interesting information on the Vaal Dam for dissemination via the channels mentioned above. A variety of information sources (photographs, news articles, research papers and YouTube, to name a few) are added using links to the Internet.

The Vaal Dam was constructed in 1938 and lies 77 km south of OR Tambo International Airport. The Vaal Dam is in on the Vaal River, which is one of South Africa's strongest-flowing rivers. It has over 800 km of shoreline and is South Africa's second biggest dam by area and the third largest by volume.

With rain forecast for the next week or so in catchment areas feeding into the Vaal Dam, keeping up to date with capacity information could be an interesting and valuable exercise. Discussions are underway to explore replicating this Internet of Things project for other local dams and rivers, in line with international trends.

The initiative has already drawn interest reaching far beyond our shores. Butgereit received a message from a professor at the University of Puerto Rico - Mayaguez Campus Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering Department, he saw the Vaal Dam twitter feed and made contact with her. "He is interested in the DWA's method of updating the dam stage level periodically," she confirms.