Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items
Categories
UFS News Media Release Research
Years
2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024
Months
January February March April May June July August September October November December
Previous Archive
19 December 2018 | Story Leonie Bolleurs | Photo Leonie Bolleurs
Water management reseachers
Marinda Avenant, Dirk Jungman and Niels Schütze are working on a project proposal for a decision support system that will assist local authorities with sustainable water resources management. Both Dirk and Niels are from the Technical University Dresden in Germany.

Climate change has a strong effect on the water cycle and is likely to lead to a multitude of hazardous weather events such as droughts, heavy rainfall and floods in Southern Africa.

The Technical University of Dresden, in Germany, in collaboration with the Centre for Environmental Management at the University of the Free State (UFS), earlier this year received seed funding to develop a project proposal for a study on the risks of climate change.

At a recent workshop, universities (including the Central University of Technology, University of KwaZulu-Natal, University of Pretoria, Cape Peninsula University of Technology and the Namibia University of Science and Technology), Weather SA and the Global Water Partnership of Southern Africa) as well as companies from the public and private sectors and universities in Germany (Technical University Dresden, United Nations University Flores, Büro für Angewandte Hydrologie, and WISUTEC Chemnitz), collaborated to discuss the project proposal.

The proposal to obtain funding for the study will be submitted in May 2019.

 

Managing water resources

Once funding is obtained, the combined team will study a series of sites in the upper (Qwaqwa), middle (Free State Goldfields) and lower Vaal catchment areas. The aim of this three-year project is to prepare climatic, hydrological and ecological models as a basis for the development of a decision support system (DSS). This simple-to-use DSS is intended to assist local authorities with sustainable water resources management, as well as to address the risks associated with future climate change in their regions.

The study is titled: Threats of droughts and floods: investigating resilience to the multiple risks of climate change in Southern Africa and the study area was chosen for its suitability in terms of non-perenniality of rivers, residual impacts of mining, climate change, urbanisation, the poor quality of water, major modification of natural ecosystems, as well as poverty and joblessness.

According to Marinda Avenant, lecturer in the Centre for Environmental Management, increasing hazards can result in additional ecological, social and economic impacts and risks such as asset damage, yield reduction and decrease of livelihoods for the region. “We intend to produce a tool to support decision-making and risk-management by means of easily understandable guidelines to consider threats of droughts and floods under climate-change conditions of mining-contaminated, non-perennial river systems,” said Avenant.

 

Reliable forecasts

 

A web-based data platform to provide reliable forecasts of disaster risk and effective warnings of multiple hazardous weather events will also be developed to support resilient management strategies and to trigger risk reduction behaviour.

News Archive

UFS in forefront with ASGI-SA initiative
2006-05-10

At the conceptualisation colloquium and stakeholder dialogue were from the left Dr Aldo Stroebel (senior researcher at the UFS Research Development Directorate), Dr Edith Vries (acting Chief Executive Officer of the Independent Development Trust) and Prof Frans Swanepoel (Director: UFS Research Development Directorate).

UFS in forefront with ASGI-SA initiative

Two staff members of the University of the Free State (UFS) have been appointed as members of the advisory board of the national programme for the creation of small enterprises and jobs in the second economy.  This programme forms part of government’s Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative of South Africa (ASGI-SA).

Prof Frans Swanepoel, Director of the UFS Research Development Directorate and Dr Aldo Stroebel, senior researcher at the UFS Research Development Directorate, are working with a team of experts from the UFS on a draft implementation strategy for the national programme.  Both Prof Swanepoel and Dr Stroebel are also associated to the UFS Centre for Sustainable Agriculture.
 
“The strategy is being developed in collaboration with institutions like the Independent Development Trust, the Department of Agriculture, the National Development Agency and the Department of Trade and Industry,” says Prof  Swanepoel.  

The other team members of the UFS are Prof Basie Wessels, Director of the  Mangaung-University Community Partnership Programme (MUCPP) and Mr  Benedict Mokoena, project manager at the MUCPP.

Dr Stroebel was also member of the organising committee of a conceptualisation colloquium and stakeholder dialogue that was recently presented in Johannesburg.  The conference was attended by more than 400 delegates from government departments, higher-education institutions and civil society, including Dr Kobus Laubscher, member of the UFS Council.

The conference was facilitated by Ms Vuyo Mahlati, previously from the WK Kellogg Foundation’s Africa programme and opened by Ms Thoko Didiza, Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs.   

“The colloquium formed the basis of an induction workshop during which a group of 150 individuals (50 teams of three) from all nine provinces, identified to initiate the implementation of the national programme, was trained and orientated towards an induction manual in collaboration with Hand-in-Hand, an Indian counterpart,” says Prof Swanepoel.

Dr Stroebel and Mr Benedict Mokoena formed part of the team to conceptualise and finalise this training manual.  The induction training includes a case study of a successful community self-help partnership model, namely the MUCPP at the UFS. Prof Wessels and Mr Mokoena are both playing a leading role in the further development of subsequent training initiatives throughout South Africa, in partnership with the relevant provincial departments.

“The involvement of the UFS in the programme is a compliment to us.  It reflects the value government sees in the use of academics and experts in the management of the ASGI-SA initiative.  It is also an indication of one of the aims of the UFS to play a role in South Africa and Africa and in the transformation and change that is taking place in our country,” says Prof Swanepoel.  

Media release
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Media Representative
Tel:   (051) 401-2584
Cell:  083 645 2454
E-mail:  loaderl.stg@mail.uovs.ac.za
10 May 2006

We use cookies to make interactions with our websites and services easy and meaningful. To better understand how they are used, read more about the UFS cookie policy. By continuing to use this site you are giving us your consent to do this.

Accept