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Project properties |
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| Title | Impact of rainwater harvesting on ecosystem services in the Modder river basin |
| Group | Soil Physics and Land Management group |
| Project type | thesis |
| Credits | 24-39 |
| Supervisor(s) | Johanna Schild |
| Examiner(s) | Coen Ritsema |
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| Begin date | 2020/02/09 |
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| Description | Problem context
The Modder river basin in central South Africa is a semi-arid basin that is experiencing great challenges with water availability. These water shortages negatively affect the provision of ecosystem services, that are used by many people and sectors in the basin, such as subsistence farmers, commercial farmers and urban residents. Land management measures are therefore urgently needed to improve the water availability throughout the basin. As such, rainwater harvesting has been implemented on a small scale in the upper parts of the basin. While this may improve the situation locally (increasing crop yields, farmer income and soil quality, for instance), this may also negatively affect water availability downstream and water-related ecosystem services. Research Objective/Question Research projects can focus on different aspects of land management in relation to water availability within the river basin, such as: - measuring the impact of rainwater harvesting on ecosystem services provision (in a biophysical or economic way), - making a water balance of water supply and demand of the various stakeholders within the basin, - exploring the impact of rainwater harvesting on the subsistence farmers (biophysical and socio-economic). What is expected from the student (type of research) Depending on the specific topic, quantitative data analyses of biophysical and/or socio-economic data need to be carried out. Data analysis can also involve spatial-explicit analyses using GIS. |
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