Month: May 2018

Today I had a chance to learn how a Weather Station is installed. This Weather Station consist of sensors that are used  to produce Data for wind speed, rainfall, humidity and daily temperatures that will be used to make proper arguments concerning the project at Atlantis, South Africa. All data received from the CR1000 logger is accumulated by connecting a PC.

Why is it important to have a weather station??

In order to understand the impacts of Alien invasive species on aquifers, we also have to know the climatic conditions of that area e.g how much rainfall has been received during the period of the research and how much of groundwater is being deducted by the invasive trees when temperatures are high etc .

Today we took a trip to Atlantis with my Host supervisors Dr. Mark Gush and Dr. Richard Bugan. We did field selection, inspection of the trees and marking of territory of  where we will install our HPV system. The HPV system is used to measure the sap flow in the trees to show how much water is being lost through evapotranspiration.  It was an interesting journey to learn about the different types of invasive alien trees growing  in the area and luckily enough I saw how they are being cut down and controlled from growing any further. These alien invasive trees extract water from the aquifer which is a source of water for the Atlantis community.

It was an interesting day for me today with my Host supervisors Dr. Mark Gush and Dr. Richard Bugan preparing the equipment that will be used for my research at Atlantis in Cape Town, South Africa. We will be looking at the Impacts of invasive alien trees on recharge into the Atlantis aquifer on the West Coast of South Africa . We were checking if all the equipment of the weather station are working properly. We have tested the HPV (heat pulse velocity) equipment and we made sure that we have all the tools that will be needed for installation .

• Estimates of the impacts of alien plant invasions on surface water runoff in South Africa were, and continue to be, a key factor in motivating for the establishment and continuation of the Working for Water programme (Van Wilgen et al., 1998).
• Water resources in arid and semi-arid regions are under great pressure from among others; (1) increased demand by growing populations, (2) climate change,(3) invasive alien plants that consume large quantities of water (Le Maitre, 1999)

My first day at CSIR was very interesting, I got a chance to meet with my host supervisors Dr. Mark Gush and Dr. Richard Bugan, who were very welcoming. I am now working on the corrections for first draft of the literature review and continuing reviewing publications.

 

After 18 hours of flying from Ireland to South Africa, finally I have arrived in Stellenbosch. I’m so excited about working on my home based research, especially dealing with the impacts of  invasive alien trees on aquifers in the area of Atlantis, Western Cape.