SAEON in the media

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SAEON’s Dr Jasper Slingsby at the Muizenberg Festival (Picture: James de Villiers, News24)

An article titled “Dams - Latest levels: Winelands and Cape Town”, that was posted in Boland News, Cape Winelands News, Green Living, Nature & Outdoors and Paarl News on September 12, points readers to the data available on the SAEON Fynbos Node’s drought monitors:

“This week I have included an interesting graph prepared by the Fynbos Node of the South African Environmental Observation Network (SAEON). Unlike the graphs of rainfall at CT airport compiled by the Climate Group at UCT, this SAEON graph shows the rainfall records of the weather station located in the Dwarsberg Mountains above Jonkershoek.”

The article also recommends that readers visit the website and “read more about the interesting findings”.

“Cape Town’s groundwater plan targets ‘impossible’”, an article published in News24 on October 11, reports on the facilitated dialogue held in the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) centre in Muizenberg under the theme of discussing Cape Town's water future. The article quotes SAEON’s Dr Jasper Slingsby on water losses caused by invasive species:

"At the moment, the existing invasive species in our primary catchments in Cape Town are using as much water as the entire Wemmershoek Dam," he said. "So that's enough water for the city [for] roughly two to three months."

Slingsby said predictions indicate that in the next 30 years, invasive species will consume as much as the Berg River Dam, which is seven to nine months of the city's water needs.

"In terms of clearing, I think it would be a hell of a lot cheaper than desalination or any of the alternatives the city is thinking of," Slingsby said.

An article titled Finding Nemoscolus, on the  stone-nest spiders (Nemoscolus tubicola) found at SAEON's Tierberg site by Dr Joh Henschel and visiting scientist Yael Lubin, was published in The Spider Club News (page 14, October edition).

The Phalaborwa Herald of September 15 ran an article on a local learner who jetted off to Cape Town to  represent the Ndlovu Node at the annual SAEON Environmental Science Education Symposium. Ntsako Nyathi, a grade eleven learner at Barankuna Secondary School in Lulekani outside Phalaborwa, presented his group's research on the relationship between vegetation and soil at Timbavati Protected Land and Timbavati Communal Land.