Today, Monday, 27. March 2023, on our last day of the 2023 SALDi field trip we had our final SALDi findings presentation at SANBI (South African National Biodiversity Institute) in Kirstenbosch, Cape Town (Photo: J. Baade 2023).
We felt honoured by the wide interest in our findings (above), challenging questions, interesting discussions and agreements on future collaboration over fingerfood lunch (below) (Photos: J. Baade 2023). We like to acknowledge our hosts from SANBI for providing this opportunity and our sponsor, the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) for the continuous support.
Visit to the Department of Agriculture, Western Cape Province, at Elsenburg on the morning of March, 23rd, to present major findings of the SALDi Project.
In the afternoon, the soil moisture equipment close to Elim in the Nuwejaars Special Management Area (SMA) within the SALDi site #1, Overberg, was serviced and results presented to the Nuwejaars SMA employees (Photo: C. Schmullius)
Downloading one year of soil moisture records and maintaining the soil moisture equipment at our driest site, the Augrabies Falls National Park (Photo: S. Strauss 2023).
SALDi soil temperature (above) and soil moisture (below) record from March 2019 to January 2022. In January 2021 a strong rainfall event drowned the datalogger and interrupted the record. It was only at the end of the COVID pandemic that the datalogger could be replaced (Compilation: J. Baade 2023).
On March, 16th,we visited the Marico Biosphere Reserve to present major SALDi findings and to establish new contacts with local stakeholders (Photo: C. Schmullius 2023).
Later that day we visited the soil moistrure instrument at Rametsi Game Lodge to recovered one year of records and to introduce a new game ranger to the maintanence procedures (Photo: C. Schmullius 2023).
Following an invitation of the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences at the University of Pretoria the SALDi project presented the major findings in a function at the PureCafe on Wednesday, March 15th. This included presentations on soil erosion, on land surface dynamics and socio-economic aspects of land degradation. This event was a perfect opportunity to meet longtime partners and establish new contacts (Photo: M. Wolsza 2023).
Fruiteful discussions continued over the fingerfood lunch (Photo: J. Baade 2023).
On March, 13th, we presented SALDi findings concerning reservoir siltation, soil loss assessments and Earth Observation based land surface dynamics to members of the White River Valley Conservancy Board (WRVCB) in a small stakeholder meeting (Photo: M. Wolsza 2023).
View from God’s Window over the foothills towards East (Photo: J. Baade 2014)
View from God’s Window over the foothills towards East (Photo: J. Baade 2023) showing mostly stable land use and land cover patterns, but as well some changes mainly due to commercial, large scale forestry.
Dr. Baade, presenting the introduction to the SALDi project to small-scale farmers in the Malelane-Komatipoot region supported by a translator who translated the English presentation to the local language, i.e. SiSwati (Photo: C. Schmullius 2023).
Group photo of the participants in the SALDi results presentation to small-scale Farmers in the Malelane-Komatipoort area in Mpumalanga (Photo: J. Baade 2023).
Prof. Schmullius presenting SALDi results concerning Earth surface dynamics detected by Earth observation using ESA Sentinel satellite data (Photo: M. Wolsza 2023)
Dr- Baade presenting SALDi results concerning soil erosion assessments for the southern part of Kruger National Park (Photo: C. Schmullius 2023)
We took the thursday ‚off‘ to visit the Lower Sabie soil moisture site to download data and maintain the site with the support of our KNP liason officer T. Strydom and a game guard.
Maintaining the SALDi soil moisture network is another important task of this years field trip. This image shows work at the grassland site close to Wepener in the SALDi study site Mantsopa in the Free State Province (Photo: C. Schmullius 2023).
Soil Moisture record for the site close to Wepener (March 2019 to Dec. 2022, top: soil temperature, bottom: soil mositure). We are most greatful to a local farmer for watching and maintaining the soil moisture instrument. Without their support, specially over the tough Covid time, the record would most probably have much more breaks.
SALDi Field Trip and Travelblog 