Wynland has released part three of Winetech's flagship project, TerraClim, being undertaken by the CGA. For many wine grape producers in South Africa, access to accurate and detailed climate and GIS data is limited. Terraclim is funded by Winetech and is an online spatial decision-support system specifically [...]
This is a dense point cloud of a vineyard created with drone imagery with 4 bands (green, red ,red edge and near infrared). The imagery is displayed in false colour using the green , red and red edge bands. The dense point cloud was created using Agisoft Metashape and can be exported as a digital [...]
Prof Adriaan van Niekerk and Jascha Muller of the Centre for Geographical Analysis (CGA), and Dr Abraham Singels of the South African Sugarcane Research Institute (SASRI), have published their collaborative research assessing the use of multispectral remote sensing to determine fractional absorbed photosynthetically active radiation (fAPAR) in sugarcane. Crop growth models regularly use fAPAR as [...]
By Lauren McCarthy Wildfires occur globally, destroying thousands of hectares of vegetation, affecting ecosystems, the environment, and humans. Fire spread models, based on fire behaviour algorithms, have been developed in different regions to aid researchers in better understanding fires and fire-management teams in fighting the fires and making important decisions. One such model is [...]
Air temperature varies across the Earth and as such it can be represented as temperature surface (map). Temperature surfaces provide critical information for applications relating to climate change adaptation and agricultural planning and management. The generation of temperature surfaces usually involves interpolating temperature measurements taken at weather stations. Although the weather stations [...]
The drought in South Africa in recent years has forced farmers to change their watering habits and use water more efficiently, resulting in crops being irrigated less frequently. This can lead to the accumulation of salts in soils, which can have a detrimental effect on production. In the article Getting Ahead Of Salinization, [...]
On the 7th of August, the CGA and the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies were visited by Mr Mfanafuthi Gama of the Department of Agriculture, Rural Development and Land Reform. He presented on the new National Spatial Planning Data Repository (NSPDR) which is being developed by his department. The NSPDR will [...]
The CGA presented their Introduction to Geographic Information Systems (GIS) short course from 3rd to 7th of June, which was attended by 8 delegates. This course is aimed at beginners to GIS and teaches the basic theoretical and practical functionality of GIS. Themes covered in this course include: An introductory overview of GIS in the context of geo-information [...]
The CGA expanded at the beginning of 2019, adding a number of new members of staff to our team. We would like to welcome Dr Tara Southey, Mr Adriaan Prins and Mr Christiaan Theron. Dr Tara Southey joined the CGA in April as Postdoctoral Researcher focusing on climate change in [...]
See below a comparison of Sentinel 2 images of the fires affecting the Overberg area. On the left are images taken on the 22nd of December 2018 before the fires started, and on the right are images taken on the 6th of January, when the burnt area was estimated at 5600ha. On the 8th [...]