A South African Urban to Rural Transect

Community forms and patterns in the South African built environment

MandalaGIS has been actively involved in a wide range of urban and rural development projects over the years. Currently, they are contributing to an open space management framework for South Africa, where they have identified the need for a comprehensive visual and descriptive tool. This tool is designed to foster collaboration between town and regional planners and environmentalists, enabling them to better understand and address the unique challenges of South Africa's built environment.

An urban to rural transect is a conceptual tool used in geography and urban planning to describe and analyse the changes in land use, population density, infrastructure, and environmental features as one moves from the centre of a city (urban core) to the countryside (rural areas). This transect helps illustrate the gradient or continuum of human environments, from densely built urban spaces to sparsely populated rural areas. The transect can be divided into distinct zones or regions, each representing a different type of human settlement.

Purpose and Importance

The urban to rural transect is used to analyse how different forms of land use, transportation, housing, and infrastructure evolve along this spectrum. It also helps urban planners understand how these areas interact, predict the impact of urban sprawl, and design sustainable development that balances urbanization with preserving rural areas.

In planning, the transect can help regulate development by specifying what types of buildings and land uses are appropriate for each zone, thus fostering more organized and efficient growth that meets the needs of both urban and rural populations.

By encouraging a shared language between these disciplines, the initiative aims to bring them closer together in their approach to sustainable development.

This Urban to Rural Transect diagram seeks to address precisely that—highlighting the structural differences within the South African context. Many academic articles on transects often fail to reflect local dynamics, offering only a generic view. Our hope is that this diagram will serve as a valuable tool for fostering communication between various disciplines. While it’s designed primarily for use by planners, the poster also has educational value and can be utilized in schools. Feel free to download and print the poster—it could make a great addition to your office or classroom!

Download the poster from here: https://www.mandalagis.com/artwork

MandalaGIS Sharpens Geospatial Accuracy of South Africa's Active Mines

The absence of a precise and up-to-date mining cadastre in South Africa has posed significant challenges to accurately tracking and managing the country's active mining operations. Recognizing this gap, MandalaGIS undertook the task of re-mapping the locations of active mines across the region. The existing mine registry, maintained by the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE), has been found to be considerably flawed. Its inaccuracies stem from several issues, including duplication of records, poor geographic descriptions, and a general lack of detailed information about many mining operations. These deficiencies have resulted in an incomplete understanding of the spatial distribution and operational status of mines in South Africa, which complicates oversight, regulation, and economic planning.

In an effort to address these problems, the MandalaGIS re-mapping initiative aimed to develop a more reliable geodatabase for South Africa’s mining sector. The project involved the re-capture of 2004 mining sites, with a focus on enhancing the accuracy and completeness of the data. Each mine was carefully geo-referenced, and operations were systematically classified according to the commodity type being extracted. This classification is crucial because it allows for a clearer understanding of the types of minerals being mined.

One of the innovative features of this effort was the assignment of a confidence level to each captured record. Given the varying quality of available information, the confidence level serves as an indicator of the reliability and precision of the data associated with each mining site. This approach acknowledges the inherent uncertainties in re-mapping efforts and offers stakeholders a transparent way to assess the data's trustworthiness. Higher confidence levels indicate greater certainty in the accuracy of the location and operational status of a mine, while lower confidence levels suggest that further verification may be required.

Below is a summary of the confidence levels assigned to the captured mining sites, reflecting the rigorous validation process behind this initiative:

Confidence level	Done	Outstanding	Grand Total	%
1 - High confidence	1117		1117	55,74%
3 - Medium high confidence	266		266	13,27%
4 - Medium confidence	111		111	5,54%
5 - Low confidence Captured on farm description	99		99	4,94%
6 - Could not locate	44		44	2,20%
7 - Not done yet		364	364	18,21%
8 - Already rehabilitated	1		1	0,05%
Grand Total	1640	364	2004	100,00%

The only remaining category of mines yet to be fully captured is alluvial diamond mining. This category requires additional time and is currently in the process of being mapped and integrated into the database.

"unearth" Artwork

The theme of "unearth" highlights how mining disrupts the planet’s crust, releasing pollutants like mercury and cyanide into soil and waterways. Open-pit mines and tailings generate dust and hazardous particles, affecting local and distant environments.

You are welcome to use this artwork. It was created by compiling over a thousand photographs of various mining operations, tailings, heaps, and waste dumps across South Africa. To enrich the composition, an AI-generated depiction of an anonymous mineworker was included. These images were carefully mosaicked together, resulting in the final piece of artwork that reflects the diverse landscapes and human presence within South Africa’s mining industry. The artwork can be downloaded from here.

This is how a zoomed-in area of the artwork looks:

It will print in hi-resolution on a A2 canvas.

It's important to recognize that underground mining often extends beyond farm boundaries, and the point locations provided represent only the surface-level operations visible from aerial imagery. Subsurface activities may cover a much broader area.

This initiative will significantly enhance spatial planning efforts until the official mining cadastre, commissioned by the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE), is completed.

For assistance with spatial planning projects involving the location of mining activities in South Africa, feel free to contact Willem at willem@mandalagis.co.za.

The Karoo Regional Spatial Development Framework (RSDF)

MandalaGIS teamed up with the Akanya Development Services town and regional planning team to develop the spatial development framework for the larger Karoo arid region of South Africa.

Source: MandalaGIS 2021

The Karoo Region is a unique and awe-inspiring ecological, physical, social, cultural, and economic phenomenon stretching over four provinces in the South African landscape.

The Karoo Regional Spatial Development Framework (RSDF) aims to apply regional-scale thinking, conceptualisation and planning to the region in order to: (1) harness the full development potential of the region in a sustainable and transformative way, and (2) address the shared, large-scale regional challenges, such as climate change, poverty, inequality, and unequal access to, and participation in the economy.

The Karoo RSDF will focus on the following regional attributes, characteristics, dynamics, flows and processes:

• Regional development drivers and threats

• Regional spatial economics, interactions, and flows

• Regional settlement histories and futures

• Regional institutional alignment and cooperation

www.karoorsdf.co.za