The SASSCAL Data and Information Portal

Abstract

Climate change and adaptive land management in southern Africa-assessments, changes, challenges, and solutions. Biodiversity & Ecology, 6, Klaus Hess Publishers, Göttingen & Windhoek.

Climate change impacts on ecosystems and adaptation options in nine countries in southern Africa: What do we know?

“…Therefore, the authors extensively called for more intensive and coordinated monitoring of vegetation and animal populations, which seems to be particularly needed for marine and freshwater ecosystems (Kirkman et al 2011, Sherley et al 2012, de Cauwer et al 2014. In fact, earth monitoring and climate change research infrastructure in the region has significantly advanced in the last decade (Kaspar et al 2015, Helmschrot et al 2018, Muche et al 2018. Still, further development is needed, particularly in moving the focus from the monitoring toward more integrative approaches, which account for the feedback between environmental drivers, biodiversity, ecosystem services, and socioeconomic conditions and developments (Pereira et al 2010, England et al 2018.…”

Towards an integrated pan-African observation network for long-term climate change monitoring: A web-based tool for collaborative data collection and analysis

“…Future possibilities include expanding this approach to other applications and turning this tool into a publicly available resource, e.g. through integration with the SASSCAL Data and Information Portal (Helmschrot et al, 2018).…”

Determining Hydrological Variability Using a Multi-Catchment Model Approach for the Western Cape, South Africa

“…The area lacks the hydrological modelling tools required for climate change-based assessments, as the availability of gauging meteorological and streamflow networks hinders model applications in the WC, as well as in much of southern Africa. With the improvement in remote sensing, scientific data portals [21,22] and the accessibility of data from the World Meteorological Organisation [23], rainfall-runoff models that simulate hydrological processes and flow components can be applied. However, simulations are influenced by catchment size and the availability of relevant streamflow and meteorological data, as well as streamflow characteristics and anthropogenic factors.…”