History
Water is one of the fundamental forces of nature. Harnessing that power comes with risks. In an arid land, the line between not having enough and having too much water is quickly crossed by flash floods. Much of Mariental was suddenly waist-deep in muddy brown water in 2006, when an already full Hardap Dam couldn’t cope with massive additional inflow.
‘The Great Fish River and its tributaries cover an immense area especially favourable for the construction of large dams. Systematic harnessing of this river alone will facilitate the irrigation of vast stretches of arable land.’ The sentiment of this assessment by the German administration over a century ago still fuels imaginations today. The Neckartal Dam on the lower Fish River, completed in 2018, is Namibia’s largest storage dam.
During their 30-year tenure, the Germans systematically surveyed hydrological potential across their colony and identified several sites for dams along the Fish River, including Neckartal and Hardap. Construction was approved at the Komatsas site near Hardap, but this was thwarted by World War I. An intensive review by the South African administration from 1949 to ’59 selected the final site on Farm Hardap, and the dam was built between 1960 and ’62. At the time of its completion, Hardap was the third-largest storage dam in southern Africa, and remained Namibia’s largest dam for over half a century. It supplies water to Mariental, as well as for agriculture and aquaculture near the dam. Extreme downpours in the upper catchment have repeatedly caused extensive flooding of Mariental, as sluice gates had to be fully opened to cope with massive inflow. The flooding of 2006 was the worst recorded. Serious flooding also took place in 2000, and several times during the 1970s.
The Fish River has been a focal point for people for millennia, shown by striking rock engravings and other artefacts. San, Nama and Oorlam used the area prior to the arrival of Europeans. By the late 1700s, European hunting expeditions were decimating wildlife across the region. During a 1791 quest by Willem van Reenen and consorts, rhino, giraffe and buffalo were shot as food along the Leber River, a tributary of the Fish originating near Hardap. In the course of nine months, they shot 65 rhinos. When the Germans occupied South West Africa a century later, the land around Mariental was developed as private farmland, mainly for small stock.
Hardap is named after the farm Hardap on which the dam was constructed. The farm name is derived from the Nama word /haras, which means wart and refers to the many wart-like hills or kopjes found in the area.
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