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programs & activities >capacity building > young scientists > African young scientists at the 2008 IGBP Congress Capacity Building Programs: African Young Scientists Session at the 2008 IGBP Conference Final Project Report for 2008 START Workshop for Young African Scientists (YAS) Paper Presenters The seasonal variation of the concentrations of ozone, sulphur (IV) oxide and nitrogen oxides in two Nigerian cities - Abstract Projecting future land degradation under changing climates in the Swartland, southwestern Cape, South Africa - Abstract Environmental change and vulnerability of rural livelihoods in Ethiopia - Abstract Climate variability and change in the Seychelles-Chagos thermocline ridge of the South West Indian Ocean (Paper) - Abstract Palaeo-environmental evolution of the Okavango system, NW Botswana - Abstract Climate Change/Variability and Impacts on Community Livelihoods in Mbozi District, Tanzania - Abstract |
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NOx and Ozone Emissions from Traffic Sites in Johannesburg and Cape Town: A Comparison - Abstract Determinants of climate adaptation strategies of African farmers: Multinomial choice analysis - Abstract Global environmental change and urban flood in Lagos - Abstract Biodiversity under threat from climate change: Implications for tick-borne diseases in Sub-Sahara Africa - Abstract
Poster Presenters Measuring vulnerability of Ethiopian farmers to climate change across regional states - Abstract Savannas and environmental stresses: Future trajectories for South Africa’s communal areas - Abstract South African Environmental Observation Network Long term monitoring of oceans around Southern Africa (Poster) - Abstract The effect of habitat transformation on the physiology of Angora Goats - Abstract |
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Participant Abstracts Papers The seasonal variation of the concentrations of ozone, sulphur (IV) oxide and nitrogen oxides in two Nigerian cities The influence of meteorological conditions and other pollutants (precursors) on the seasonal variation of surface concentration of ozone in two cities in Nigeria has been investigated. This is important for the understanding of the intercontinental transport. A combination of multivariate statistical methods including Factor Analysis (FA), Principal Component Analysis (PCA), Multiple Linear Regression (MLR) as well as Principal Component Regression (PCR) were employed. The PCA reveals three distinct groupings during the day for all data, a reflection of different factors contributing to the atmospheric chemistry of these cities. The predicted ozone concentration values by MLR agree fairly well with the measured data. The PCR results for the two cities indicate that reduction in the level of NOx is accompanied by an increase in the level of ozone, suggesting the interconversion between the two via photochemical activity. Projecting future land degradation under changing climates in the Swartland, southwestern Cape, South Africa Semi-arid regions are subject to continued, accelerated soil erosion. Historically severe land degradation has featured in the agriculturally important region of the Swartland, Western Cape, South-Africa. Mainly due to bad farming practices and the replacement of natural vegetation with crops, this region has become climatically vulnerable to further change. Environmental change and vulnerability of rural livelihoods in Ethiopia The extreme dependence on environmental resources and economic underdevelopment make Ethiopia one of the most vulnerable countries to global environmental change. Changes in land cover and soil degradation, rainfall variability/change, and decline in water resources availability are the most widespread forms of local environmental change. These phenomena have certainly contributed to, as have also been partly caused by, the pervasive poverty and food insecurity in the country. The rural poor in Ethiopia are thus apparently caught in a downward spiral of poverty and environmental change. This paper presents evidences on local environmental change and its implications on sustainable rural livelihoods from the Ethiopian highlands. Climate variability and change in the Seychelles-Chagos thermocline ridge of the South West Indian Ocean The Seychelles-Chagos thermocline ridge is a region of doming of the ocean thermocline NE of Madagascar. Interannual variability in the depth of this ridge is related to the frequency of tropical cyclones in the region, sea surface temperature and phytoplankton anomalies. Despite its importance for regional ocean climate and rainfall over southeastern Africa, the ridge is not well understood. Hence, an ocean model is applied to better understand its generation mechanisms and its sensitivity to changes in the subtropical high pressure cell over the South Indian Ocean. The latter is projected to shift south and intensify in some climate change simulations; hence inferences about how the ridge might change in future climates may be made. Palaeo-environmental evolution of the Okavango system, NW Botswana. Data have been gathered on freshwater wetlands and their response to past climatic change in central southern Africa because of water shortages in the prevalent semi-arid climatic regime. The Okavango Delta is a highly dynamic alluvial fan with wetter extents varying from 6000 to 12000 km2 in any given year. Because of the absence of long term inflow or climatic data in the region a useful approach has been to collect data on multi-proxy investigations of surficial sediments which can serve as palaeo-climatic indicators. Thermo-luminescence dating, SEM and geochemical analyses provide evidence of Quaternary Okavango environments, including evidence for more humid and drier episodes in the Late Pleistocene and Holocene. Knowledge of such past climatic and environmental change is essential if modelling of future global change and its regional manifestations is to be effective. Climate Change/Variability and Impacts on Community Livelihoods in Mbozi District, Tanzania The paper presents an assessment of impact of climate change and variability on the natural and socio-economic systems in the southern highlands of Tanzania. The study was conducted in Ntungwa and Nyimbili, representing the drier lowland and the wetter highlands agro-ecosystems respectively. The findings indicate that local people’s perceptions on climate change/variability are based on assessment of several climate attributes and incidences of pests and diseases. Household assets influence levels of vulnerability to climate change/variability, consequently the adaptive capacity of local communities. Social groups endowed with more livelihood assets pursue proactive adaptive strategies as compared to those with limited assets. Keywords: Climate change/variability, local perceptions, community livelihoods, adaptive strategies NOx and Ozone Emissions from Traffic Sites in Johannesburg and Cape Town: A Comparison Monitoring air pollution is important in measuring sustainability of human activities. Measuring traffic emissions enables an evaluation of sustainable motor vehicle use. Automatic samplers that produce high resolution measurements in real time were used to measure NOX and O3 traffic emissions in South Africa, results showed morning and afternoon peaks in pollution levels. NOx cause a variety of health and environmental impacts due to the various compounds and derivatives in the family of nitrogen oxides, O3 emissions have major environmental impacts and greenhouse gas effects, contributing significantly to global environmental change; also N2O has an impact on climate change. Of greater importance is the impact the emissions may have on receiving environments and health in South Africa and their contribution to global environmental change in Africa. Determinants of climate adaptation strategies of African farmers: Multinomial choice analysis This study analysed how farmers adapted and the determinants of farm-level climate adaptation measures in Africa using a multinomial choice model fitted to data from a cross-section survey of over 8000 farm households from 11 African countries. The policy message from the results is that government policies and investment strategies that support provision of and access to education, markets, credit and information on climate and adaptation measures including suitable technological and institutional mechanisms that facilitate climate adaptation are required for coping with climate change and sustaining adaptation, particularly among poor resource farmers in the dry areas of Africa. Global Environmental Change and Urban Flood in Lagos This study uses Precipitation Water Inundation Model (PWIM) that integrates projections of precipitation and urbanization drivers to simulate future flood generations in Lagos. Four future climate scenarios; low, medium-low, medium-high and high for 25, 50 and 100 years were analysed. The result reveals that about 20% to 25% increase in urban hydrological fluxes, will be recorded in the next 50 - 100 years due to global environmental change. Therefore, sustainable developmental projects targeted at reducing the vulnerability and risk level of citizens, should integrate a marginal increase of 20 to 25 percent in the design criteria. Biodiversity under threat from climate change: Implications for tick-borne diseases in Sub-Sahara Africa Ticks depend on climate and biodiversity for population establishment. Under climate change conditions, new distribution ranges are anticipated. This paper presents the predicted distribution of an economically important tick species, Rhipicephalus appendiculatus and ten vertebrate hosts under simulated future climate. The implications of this change on tick-borne diseases in deduced using the “dilution effect model”. The results obtained through a modelling approach in a Geographic information system medium, show increase in tick-host assemblages indicating new geographic distribution of ticks, hosts and tick-borne diseases. Significant increases in tick-borne diseases were predicted in various countries hindering sustainable disease control under climate change. Keywords: climate change, biodiversity, tick borne diseases, Sub-Saharan Africa, “dilution effect”. Posters Adaptation to Climate Change in Ghana. Is the issue on the minds of rural farmers? This paper uses participatory risk mapping and pair wise ranking and scoring techniques among women, men and youth (each in groups of 10-12 participants), in the Wenchi district (one of the bread baskets) of Ghana, to explore whether issues of climate change feature at all on the minds of rural farmers. This is very crucial because one of the ingredients for a successful adaptation strategy on climate is whether the people concerned see the issue as an overarching problem. Results show that while men rank climate (low rainfall) first, and gives it a severity score of four (on a scale of 1=almost negligible to 5= life threatening), women rank the same variable, eighth, and gives it a severity score of five. Disobedient children, teenage pregnancy, low market price for farm produce, single parenting and financial problems, were the top five issues on the minds of the women. However, climate change did not feature at all in the discussions with the youth until they were prompted. Climate was therefore given a rank of twelfth, with a severity score of two among the youth. The paper shows that there are clearly gender and age dimensions to climate change and policies and programmes on adaptation should take these into consideration. Measuring vulnerability of Ethiopian farmers to climate change across regional states This study creates vulnerability indices for regional states of Ethiopia based on their socioeconomic and environmental characteristics by using the method of principal component analysis. Based on the vulnerability indices developed, regions were clustered into three groups as vulnerable, moderately vulnerable and less vulnerable. According to the analysis, the relatively least developed, semi-arid and arid regions and regions where drought is frequent are most vulnerable. Important adaptation options include investment on the development of relatively less developed regions, conservation of natural resources in drought prone regions, the use of irrigation, and making higher-yielding and drought-tolerant crop varieties available to farmers. Key words: Vulnerability, principal component analysis, Ethiopia, Adaptation Savannas and environmental stresses: Future trajectories for South Africa’s communal areas. The singular or combined effects of stressful events and human imposed activities on the environment could lead to changes in ecosystems (e.g. savannas) that are detriment to human and environmental security. Therefore, interpretations of the coupled human-environment system in different sociopolitical and historical contexts will lead to our understanding of environmental change scenarios. A study of Communal Areas, associated with the former apartheid government’s forced relocation of the black population in South Africa is presented. The goal was to understand pressures of environmental and human-political conditions including drought on savannas. There were thirteen locally identifiable causes of land cover change, with 24% households naming deforestation (from wood harvesting) as a major cause, wild fires (24.7%) and drought (22.9%). Household experienced at least one form of environmental or societal stress. Most households (36.7%) cited drought as the most important stress, with the majority experiencing double stresses at a given period. Livelihoods included dry-land farming, non-timber forest products, kinship ties, welfare grants and migration. If land for cropping increased at 2.5% minimum per annum, most woodland could not be sustained beyond 2042. These are relevant information to enable households and institutions to adapt to, and intervene in environmental change challenges. Long term monitoring of oceans around Southern Africa The South African Environmental Observation Network (SAEON) aims to provide a comprehensive, sustained, co-ordinated and responsive South African Earth observation network that delivers long-term reliable data for scientific research and informs decision making for a knowledge society and improved quality of life. SAEON addresses the environmental observation and information needs of future generations, reaching far and wide, nationally, regionally and globally, and its success as a platform for environmental observations depends on delivery of reliable environmental data and products for science, policy and management. Education-Outreach, based on environmental sciences, has a specific focus on science educators, learners and research students. The marine offshore node of SAEON aims to fill the gaps in long-term ocean monitoring, helping to understand the impact of climate change on oceans and their resources surrounding South Africa, as well as improving our knowledge of the oceans’ influence on climate change. It is vital that we better understand these oceans as they have been shown to play a major role in the weather and climate patterns over southern Africa. Thus the impact of climate change through factors such as increases in temperature and sea level rise, which are already evident, are likely to have devastating effects on the lives of millions of impoverished people. The effect of habitat transformation on the physiology of Angora Goats Globally, pastoral practices have led to the transformation of habitat, which often leads to desertification. With climate change predicted to exacerbate desertification, adaptation provides the best survival strategy for agriculturally important herbivores. While land use and regional changes in climate have been assessed, there is little information on the plasticity of production herbivores in responding to these changes. We investigated the physiology of Angora goats inhabiting transformed and untransformed sites in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Although goats on both sites responded similarly under most environmental conditions, when goats were subjected to a physiological stress, imposed by shearing, goats inhabiting the transformed site had a faster rate of rise in body temperature in the morning (0.38 vs 0.31°C.h-1, P=0.0009), displayed an increased 24-hour body temperature amplitude (1.8 vs 1.6°C, P=0.01) and were generally less active (3.9 vs 5.2 activity units) compared to goats inhabiting the untransformed site. Post-shearing, goats inhabiting the transformed site had higher water turnover rates (P<0.0001), than goats inhabiting the untransformed site, even though they obtained less water from their diet (P=0.02). Goats that inhabited the transformed site were more water dependent and appeared more susceptible to thermal stresses in their environment than were those that inhabited the untransformed site. |
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