The
Centre for Environmental Management (CEM) at the University of the Free State (UFS), in collaboration with Dr Dirk Jungmann from the Technical University Dresden, recently presented a virtual summer school on Blackboard, titled: Monitoring of surface water quality: General framework, tools and implementing disaster management aspects in urban areas.
The international group of 30 persons who attended the summer school mostly comprised postgraduate students and employees from, among others, the UFS and other tertiary institutions such as the
Technical University Dresden (TUD), the
Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT), UNISA, the University of the Western Cape, Stellenbosch University, the University of Lesotho, and the University of Zimbabwe. Members of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research also attended the summer school.
Experts present
Dr Marinda Avenant, Senior Lecturer in the CEM, believes the summer school provides students with a wonderful opportunity to be exposed to a topic, such as aquatic biomonitoring, over and above their normal postgraduate studies. “The presenters are all experts in their field and come from a range of disciplines (from hydrology and chemistry to the social aspects of water), as well as from different countries and perspectives,” she adds.
Some interesting topics covered during the summer school included a panel discussion on water management challenges in Southern Africa. Head of CEM, Prof Paul Oberholser, participated in this live discourse. In 2021, he won the NSTF-Water Research Commission (WRC) Award for his contribution to water resource management in SA over the past five years.
Also contributing a perspective on surface water quality was affiliated professor in CEM,
Prof Anthony Turton, who delivered the keynote address on Managing surface water quality as an element of disaster management in urban areas.
Dr Alice Ncube from the
UFS Disaster Management Training and Education Centre (DiMTEC) presented on women and disasters (including a case study on a stokvel in Botshabelo), and Dr Inga Jacobs-Mata from the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) provided a social perspective on the water resources sector.
Students excel
Five master’s students representing the UFS, the Technical University Dresden (TUD), as well as the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT), assisted with the organisation of the summer school. The
Volkswagen Foundation in Germany, which funded a first summer school in 2019, provided funding that was used to appoint the five students.
According to Dr Avenant, they made provision for the appointment of these students in their project proposal to the Volkswagen Foundation. “The students played a key role in the planning of the virtual summer school; they specially came up with ideas to make the virtual sessions more interesting,” she says.
Among others, they managed the technical aspects of the sessions, introduced the speakers, arranged social activities for the virtual platform, and they produced podcasts. The podcasts of the speakers were distributed to the participants over the extent of two months, in order to learn more about the presenters.
“We were really impressed with the work of the students, who are all from the natural sciences,” says Dr Avenant.