Browsing by Author "Stander, Johan"

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    Deriving a policy document towards an early warning system for estuaries in South Africa: case study Great Brak estuary, Eden District, Southern Cape
    (2020) Stander, Johan; Ansorge, Isabel; Hermes, Juliet
    South Africa's estuaries and their surrounding communities are becoming increasingly vulnerable to storm surges and accompanied estuary flooding. These events are largely due to increasing severity of storm surges combined with growing housing and commercial developments. A particularly severe weather event in 2007/2008 highlighted the pressing need to understand the processes involved and the urgency to develop proactive response and management actions to mitigate the effects of future storm events on these coastal areas. Scientific research on estuarine flooding is limited not only for South Africa but within the international community as well and only recently has received committed attention from policy makers. It is clear that our current knowledge of South African estuary flooding events remains rudimentary; while necessary action to mitigate such events are poorly understood and planned. The aim of this PhD thesis is to devise and implement an Estuary Early Warning – Emergency Preparedness and Response Guide for stakeholders and government policymakers. This guide will target South Africa's coastal region by analysing past information on storm surges and estuary flooding, particularly in the low-lying southern coast region of the Western Cape, South Africa. The key objective of this thesis is to assess the best processesfor the issuing of estuary alerts and to better standardise them so that the response remains in line with multi-hazard early warning standard procedures and practices within South Africa. A further aim is to provide a comprehensive national guideline on how best to effectively disseminate and communicate such information and to establish an Estuary Early Warning (EEW) – Emergency Preparedness and Response Guide (EPRG), which forms part of the South African Multi-Hazard Early Warning System (MHEWS). It is critical that this EEW meets general principles accepted internationally for an effective Early Warning System. This thesis addresses the following key elements namely: (1) Risk identification, (2) Key drivers and contributions to estuary flooding, (3) Monitoring and alert early warning system, (4) Alert dissemination and (5) Response actions. Such pioneering work is an essential tool to translate science into policy, a crossover field, which remains poorly implemented.
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    Exploring South Africa’s southern frontier: A 20-year vision for polar research through the South African National Antarctic Programme
    (CrossMark, 2017-06) Ansorge, Isabelle J; Skelton, Paul; Bekker, Annie; de Bruyn, P J Nico; Butterworth, Doug S; Cilliers, Pierre; Cooper, John; Cowan, Don A; Dorrington, Rosemary; Fawcett, Sarah; Fietz, Susanne; Findlay, Ken P; Froneman, P William; Grantham, Geoff H; Greve, Michelle; Hedding, David; Hofmeyr, G J Greg; Kosch, Michael; le Roux, Peter; Lucas, Mike; MacHutcho, Keith; Meiklejohn, Ian; Nel, Werner; Pistorius, Pierre; Ryan, Peter; Stander, Johan; Swart, Sebastiaan; Treasure, Anne; Vichi, Marcello; Jansen van Vuuren, Bettine
    Antarctica, the sub-Antarctic islands and surrounding Southern Ocean are regarded as one of the planet’s last remaining wildernesses, ‘insulated from threat by [their] remoteness and protection under the Antarctic Treaty System’1 . Antarctica encompasses some of the coldest, windiest and driest habitats on earth. Within the Southern Ocean, sub-Antarctic islands are found between the Sub-Antarctic Front to the north and the Polar Front to the south. Lying in a transition zone between warmer subtropical and cooler Antarctic waters, these islands are important sentinels from which to study climate change.2 A growing body of evidence3,4 now suggests that climatically driven changes in the latitudinal boundaries of these two fronts define the islands’ short- and long-term atmospheric and oceanic circulation patterns. Consequently, sub-Antarctic islands and their associated terrestrial and marine ecosystems offer ideal natural laboratories for studying ecosystem response to change.5 For example, a recent study6 indicates that the shift in the geographical position of the oceanic fronts has disrupted inshore marine ecosystems, with a possible impact on top predators. Importantly, biotic responses are variable as indicated by different population trends of these top predators.7,8 When studied collectively, these variations in species’ demographic patterns point to complex spatial and temporal changes within the broader sub-Antarctic ecosystem, and invite further examination of the interplay between extrinsic and intrinsic drivers.