Cooperation and synthesis

In cooperation with our South African partners, the overarching goal of SALDi is to implement novel, adaptive, and sustainable tools for assessing land degradation in multi-use landscapes in South Africa. The specific aims are
  1. to develop a high spatio-temporal resolution monitoring system of land and ecosystem service changes,
  2. to provide a Regional Earth System Model that allows investigating land-climate feedbacks, and
  3. to advance existing tools for assessing soil degradation processes, in particular soil erosion, representing an intrinsic limiting factor for many ecosystem services.

The focus is on refining existing approaches by explicitly taking into account the annual and seasonal variations in a spatially explicit and high-resolution approach as well as taking into account the socio-economic dimension. Against this background SALDi uses the latest Earth observation data, the increasing number of high-quality in-situ data and advances in modeling. The results will be freely available to all stakeholders in Southern Africa. Thus, our South African partners can use the developed processors, algorithms and models for long- term monitoring. In particular, the SALDi Data Cube will be exchanged with the South African National Space Agency (SANSA) and the SASSCAL Open Access Data Center (OADC). Our South African partners will use the results to improve land and soil degradation management in politics, communal and agricultural planning and to apply SALDi’s findings and insights in their university teaching.

Collaboration and synthesis

  • German SALDi project partners
  • Projects partners from Southern Africa

    Network of regional and local stakeholders and cooperation partners in South Africa

    Picture: C. Schmullius & M. Urban 2021/ FSU Jena

    SALDi cooperates closely with institutions and universities in South Africa and has direct connections to relevant South African stakeholder groups at local, regional and national level (Fig.). First of all, the tandem partner Agricultural Reasearch Council, Institute for Soil, Climate and Water (ARC-ISCW) should be mentioned. In addition, the National Park Administration's scientific service (SANParks), the South African National Space Agency (SANSA), the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), the utility Eskom and colleagues at the universities in Pretoria, Stellenbosch, Bloemfontein and Potchefstroom. They also provide multipliers for the dissemination of the results in the administrations and ministries (e.g. Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development (DALRRD), Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries (DEFF) and Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) with their local branches in South Africa. SASSCAL also supports this. In addition, the network was significantly expanded, particularly with local and regional partners and stakeholders, as part of the field visits. The network now includes the institutions listed in Figure for the six SALDi study sites.

SPACES2 terrestrial collaborative projects

SALDi is one of the terrestrial SPACES (Science Partnership for the Adaptation to Complex Earth System Processes in Southern Africa​) collaborative projects funded by the BMBF via the DLR project management agency. Our project partners are:

Link list for external collaborations