GLOMOS in South Africa for PhuthaPop Data Collection Campaign

The project aims to estimate the human population of the city of Phuthaditjhaba and the surrounding villages – the area known as QwaQwa. Together with five honour’s students of the University of the Free State who are employed by the project, the team will be calling at over 900 households in QwaQwa to carry out door-to-door surveys to establish the average number of people living in different types of houses. When combined with data from satellite images of the area, these can be used to estimate the total number of people living in QwaQwa, as well as the spatial distribution of the population. QwaQwa is a former homeland - a reserve set aside by the apartheid government to which black populations were forcibly removed – in the foothills of the Maloti-Drakensberg mountains. The official statistics estimate the population at around 300,000 residents, but local researchers and residents alike suspect the actual number to be far higher. More accurate population figures are essential for effective planning of infrastructure and services, which are key issues in the area. In particular, access to reliable potable water supply is a recurring problem in many areas, as well as waste management services, which are all but non-existent.

PhuthaPop is a collaborative project between GLOMOS, the University of the Free State and Berliner Hochschule für Technik.