The Kuiseb River is one of twelve ephemeral rivers that flow through western Namibia. It flows some 440 km from its catchment area in the Khomas Hochland just west of Windhoek down to the ocean near Walvis Bay. The river serves as a -linear oasis, allowing many plants and animals to survive and even to thrive in an otherwise dry environment. People, too, depend on the Kuiseb: the commercial farmers of the river's upper reaches, Topnaar pastoralists in the lower Kuiseb, and the people of Walvis Bay, Namibia's second-most-populous city. Industrial projects, the port and various uranium and granite mines in the area, also draw on the Kuiseb.