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Blyderivierpoort Dam in the Olifants River Catchment area has a capacity of 54 million cubic meters. There are thirty large dams in the Olifants River Catchment area. The Witbank Dam, Renosterkop Dam, Rust de Winter Dam, Blyderivierspoort Dam, Loskop Dam, Middelburg Dam, Ohrigstad Dam, Arabie Dam and the Phalaborwa Barrage are some of them. Blyderivierpoort Dam supplies water for irrigation, local industrial and domestic demands and supports the supply from the Phalaborwa Barrage to the urban and industrial centre at Phalaborwa.' The Blyde River gorge has been cleared of alien species like wattles and pines, and water from the Blyde River generally improves the water quality in the Olifants River downstream of their confluence. There are only a few active tufa waterfalls in the world one of which is at the Blyderivierspoort Dam. A tufa waterfall is formed when water running over dolomite rock absorbs calcium. Mosses which grow on the rocks in the stream extract carbon dioxide during photosynthesis which precipitates the calcium from the water to deposit it as layers of tufa on the surface of the waterfall a process that takes millions of years. The waterfall continues to flow underneath this rock-hard outer shell.

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