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27 September 2021 | Story Leonie Bolleurs | Photo Supplied
Eddie Smit, Tercia Strydom, and Prof Johan van Tol testing the hydrophobicity of soils directly after an experimental fire.

The main driving force behind climate change is the emission of greenhouse gases through human activities, says Prof Linus Franke, Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Soil, Crop and Climate Sciences at the University of the Free State. 

“Carbon dioxide is the biggest culprit, accounting for 72% of the global warming effect, followed by methane and nitrous oxide.” 

Too much carbon in the atmosphere

Human activities are the main driver of climate change, mainly by burning fossil fuels such as coal, gas, and oil, with the energy sector, industries, transport, buildings, and agriculture as the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases. 

According to the United Nations, the burning of these fossil fuels generates greenhouse gas emissions that wrap around the earth like a blanket, trapping the heat of the sun and resulting in raised temperatures. According to Prof Franke, it is important to mitigate climate change and prevent a global temperature rise of more than 1,5 degrees Celsius. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), we are looking at a temperature increase of around four degrees Celsius by the end of this century, if there are no drastic changes.

With an increase in global warming, we are expecting more disturbances in weather patterns, resulting in further extreme weather conditions such as droughts, floods, and extremely cold/hot conditions. Annually, millions of people lose their lives, livelihoods, and homes due to the effects of global warming.

“The latter has been predicted for a long time, but today it is a common phenomenon. Twenty years ago, climate change was about analysing trends in data sets. Today, to observe climate change, one can just look out of the window. In the past 10 years, climate change has become a reality,” says Prof Franke. 

Although carbon dioxide is one of the biggest contributors to global warming, it has an important role to play in soil health. 

Soil as a major sink of carbon

As plants absorb the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, enormous amounts of carbon are stored as organic soil matter in the upper two metres of soil. Prof Franke says carbon in the top two metres of soil is 200 times more than the amount that is annually emitted by human activities and three times the amount that is present in the atmosphere or vegetation. 

“Carbon in soil plays an important but underestimated role,” he says. He believes that through proper soil management, humans can control the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. In the long term, this could have a positive effect on climate change.

“Our ultimate aim it to get sufficient amounts of carbon in the soil,” says Prof Franke. His department is involved in several studies to understand soil carbon and carbon sequestration processes. 

Odwa Malongweni collecting a soil sample from exclosures in the Kruger National Park.(Photo: Supplied)

Prof Johan van Tol, Associate Professor in the same department, and postgraduate students are conducting research in the Kruger National Park and the Drakensberg, where they are investigating the best ways to preserve carbon and increase the soil carbon levels. 

He is of the opinion that there are two viable options for storing carbon removed from the atmosphere: the soil and the oceans. “Of the two, storing carbon in the soil is more realistic for most people and companies, as ownership and management of this natural resource can be determined. The potential for storing carbon in the soil is vast, yet poor soil management has led to carbon emissions equal to that of burning oil and coal reserves. Good soil management and restoration of degraded soils, on the other hand, can result in considerable sequestration of atmospheric carbon,” he says. 

According to him, soil and environmental factors determine the carbon storage potential of the soil. He says in the mountainous soils of the Maloti-Drakensberg (MD), the cool climate and high rainfall have resulted in carbon-rich soils. “This area is generally considered a ‘carbon hotspot’, yet little is known about the carbon dynamics of these soils.”

Preliminary results from a project by two of his postgraduate students, Cowan Mc Lean and Jaco Kotze, titled Characterisation of carbon stocks, microbial diversity and degradation of the soils of the Amphitheatre summit, Northern Drakensberg, show that average carbon stocks of the soils are high to very high in the alpine wetlands. They found that poor land management (overgrazing) has resulted in soil and land degradation (e.g., erosion, draining of wetlands, and loss of vegetation and biodiversity). 

“The degraded soils are no longer a ‘sink’ of atmospheric carbon, but become a ‘source’ that releases carbon,” he states. 

He says drastic action is required to restore and protect these important carbon hotspots. 

Today, to observe climate change, one can just look out of the window. In the past 10 years, climate change has become a reality. – Prof Linus Franke
In a study in the Kruger National Park, PhD students Tercia Strydom and Odwa Malongweni are investigating the impact of fires and herbivores on soil quality, including carbon contents. “They found that soil carbon is significantly impacted by fire and herbivores. The changes in vegetation structure due to fire and herbivores are likely to be the key driver of changes in carbon stocks,” says Prof Van Tol. 

An agricultural perspective 

Prof Franke considers carbon as an essential element for farming. “It is important for a healthy farming system,” he says. 

He is conducting a study on high-density grazing, funded by the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture. The on-farm performance of different grazing management systems, including selective and high-density grazing, with special reference to the spatial and temporal dynamics of soil carbon, is investigated in this study. 

The research indicates that the grassland biome of South Africa covers about 20% of South Africa’s land surface, with more than half of the biome converted to arable land or greatly disturbed by urban development mining activities. The remaining tracks of the grassland biome are mostly used for livestock grazing on natural grassland. 

 

Prof Johan van Tol, Sue van Rensburg from the South African Environmental Observation Network, and Prof
Linus Franke in the Drakensberg. (Photo:Supplied)

 

He says there are different grazing management strategies of natural grasslands. “In continuous grazing systems, animals are given the opportunity to graze all season long with minimal interference. Rotational grazing systems incorporate periodic deferments, allowing field vegetation to recover in the period when grazing is absent. 

“The more recent strategy of high-density grazing uses large herds, often double or triple the normal stocking densities for an area, grazing intensively on small areas of land for a short period of time, followed by a long resting period of the field.”

“High-density grazing is claimed to improve rangeland productivity by improving soil health, increasing soil carbon stocks to an extent that the emissions of greenhouse gases by livestock may be compensated by soil carbon sequestration, and improving the condition of the vegetation, while enhancing animal productivity on a per area basis. The adoption of high-density grazing can have major impacts on the sustainability and the economics of livestock production. An aim of the research is to quantify to what extent the claims of increasing soil carbon levels under high-density grazing realise under on-farm conditions,” explains Prof Franke.

He trusts that the knowledge generated in this project will be helpful to the broader agricultural sector, providing knowledge on carbon cycling, environmental sustainability, and opportunities for climate change mitigation in the livestock production sector.

Prof Franke is convinced that the protection of grasslands against degradation, while ensuring sufficient, reliable, and sustainable food production, are absolute key components driving the national and global development agenda.


Prof Johan van Tol taking a soil sample on top of the Drakensberg. (Photo: Supplied)

News Archive

UFS celebrates Kagiso Trust’s 30 years of commitment to the empowerment of impoverished communities
2015-07-15

From the left are: MEC Tate Makgoe, Free State Department of Education; Busi Tshabalala, Thabo Mofutsanyana Education District Director; Dean Zwo Nevhutalu,  Kagiso Trust Trustee  and UFS Director of Community Engagement, Bishop, Billy Ramahlele.
Photo: ?Thabo Kessah

Future sustainable partnerships in education will survive only if all partners are committed, honest, and transparent.

This is the view expressed by the Free State MEC for Education and UFS Council member, Tate Makgoe, during the panel discussion at the Qwaqwa Campus of the University of the Free State celebrating Kagiso Trust’s 30 years of commitment to the empowerment of impoverished communities. The topic was “The future partnership models for education in Africa”.

“Over the years, the partnership between the Free State Department of Education, the UFS, and Kagiso Trust has helped to expose the potential in our mainly rural children in the Qwaqwa area of the Thabo Mofutsanyana district,” said Makgoe.

”When we started in 2009, the matric pass rate in the district was 64%, and this rose to 87% in 2014. In Qwaqwa alone, we have managed to build 51 computer and 26 physical sciences laboratories. It was these laboratories that enabled the Free State to be the best performing province in the Physical Sciences in 2013,” added Makgoe.

“None of these achievements would have been possible if all the partners had not been committed to the course. Partnerships built on honesty and transparency are the best model, which we hope to export to other provinces and, indeed, countries,” Makgoe said.

Representing the UFS on the panel was the Director of Community Engagement, Bishop Billy Ramahlele, who added that collaborations can be successful only if the leadership was exemplary.

“As the university, we have had many collaboration with various government departments, and great strides have been achieved only with the Department of Education under the leadership of MEC Makgoe,” said Ramahlele.

”With the MEC on board, the UFS ended up dedicating its South Campus in Bloemfontein to supporting Free State schools. We now have 70 schools that benefit from live television broadcasts of lessons by some of our outstanding academics. This also enables our best academics to make a valued contribution to empowering our teachers. It also allows the university to maximise scarce resources to attain social cohesion,” he said.

In his remarks, Kagiso Trust Trustee, Dean Zwo Nevhutalu, said that Kagiso Trust was looking forward to continue working with its partners to maximise outcomes through limited resources.

“Kagiso Trust will continue to work with the poor and the marginalised and there is no better partner than the government itself. The government provides basic services, and education is one of them. This allows us to be innovative and not just dump books and equipment at schools because we are forced to by our corporate social investment obligations. Therefore, we challenge the government also to be innovative in building a sustainable future partnership model in education,” he said.

Among the dignitaries attending the panel discussion were Kagiso Trust Chairman, Dr Frank Chikane, and the late Dr Beyers Naude’s family.

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