13 April 2025
There’s been a lot of speculation around the current flooding and dam releases – some of it rooted in frustration, some in misunderstanding. So let’s break it down in plain terms: what happened, why it happened, and what it means.
How Much Water Was Released From Bloemhof Dam Over 5 Days?
To manage massive inflows and protect communities downstream, Bloemhof Dam released enormous volumes of water this past week. Here’s the breakdown:
Days 1–3: Released ~777 million cubic meters of water (3000 m³/s)
Days 4–5: Released ~432 million cubic meters (2500 m³/s)
Total 5-Day Release: ≈1.21 billion cubic meters (or 1.21 trillion liters)
That’s about 99% of Bloemhof Dam’s total full capacity, which is 1,220,388,000 m³.
In simple terms: they’ve let out the equivalent of an entire dam in just five days. Wrap your head around that!
So Why Not Just Empty It Sooner?
We’ve seen the uninformed suggestions online: “They should’ve emptied the dam before the rains!”
Really? Think about it: To release the entire dam’s water (1.22 billion m³) in just a few days would flood everyone downstream before the actual flood arrived.
And what if it didn’t rain after that? We’d be sitting with a completely empty dam and no water for crops, drinking, sanitation — remember the droughts in 1984–1988 and 2016?
That’s why dam management is about balance. You can’t open the floodgates blindly. You protect downstream areas, but also keep water safely stored. These are high-stakes, calculated decisions, made under immense pressure.
Flood Control: Where Dams Help – and Where They Can’t
Dams like Bloemhof are excellent at reducing moderate floods. They catch the early water and let it out slowly to avoid sharp flood peaks downstream.
But here’s the reality: no dam can stop an extreme flood entirely. If the inflow exceeds the dam’s capacity, water must be released – or the dam risks overtopping or failure.
Even then, these controlled releases are far safer than uncontrolled flooding. It’s about managing what you can and softening the blow.
Today’s Update (13 April 2025):
Gauge Plate: 18.250 m
Percentage Full: 104.96%
Discharge: 2139.1 m³/s
Port Arlington: 7.600
Evaporation: 3.0 mm
Rainfall: 0 mm
Dam Area: 24,044.9 hectares
Capacity: 1,327,050,000 m³
From 12:00, outflow recommended to reduce to 1900 m³/s – a hopeful sign that things are stabilising.
Massive Respect Where It’s Due
To the flood management teams, engineers, dam operators, and decision-makers — we see you.
Operating in this pressure cooker of uncertainty, criticism, and risk, your decisions are protecting thousands. You’ve released a full dam’s worth of water without losing control of the system. That’s no small feat.
To everyone reading: This is how the system works. It’s not perfect, but it’s carefully engineered, constantly monitored, and managed by people who understand the consequences of every valve turned.
Think before you comment. Not everything is poor management – sometimes it’s just the raw power of nature… met with the best of human ability.