Three of our staff members and four postgraduate students attended and presented their work at the recent Southern African Association of Geomorphologists (SAAG) biennial conference held in Chintsa East, Eastern Cape, from 16-18 September.

Maleho Sadiki, an honours student in geoinformatics was the first speaker of the conference, where she spoke on Quantifying changes in surface water bodies in response to climate change on Marion Island. Mpho is jointly supervised by Christel Hansen, a lecturer in the geoinformatics section of our department, and Michelle Greve from the Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, also from UP. Dr Hansen presented during the Tuesday mid-morning session on Historical gully erosion growth in the Lower Thina Catchment, Eastern Cape, work by her MSc student Lerato Boihang and again during the conference closing session on Topography, efficiency & GIS - what path is best?, work that investigates the effectiveness of demarcated hiking paths in nature areas of the City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality. 

Michael Loubser, one of our lecturers in geomorphology, presented a poster on Monday during the poster session on A quantification of equipment bias in the measurement of rock degradation in tombstones by ultrasonics. This forms part of his PhD work. 

Piet-Louis Grundling, an extraordinary lecturer in our department, spoke on Peat fire - an erosion catalyst in southern African mires? during the specially convened COMLAND session on Monday morning. His daughter, Renee Grundling, an honours student in our department, spoke about Investigating the origin of a newly developed wetland in the Kgaswane Mountain Reserve, Rustenburg during the Tuesday session before lunch. Renee is supervised by Dr Haussmann from our department and Prof Heinz Beckedahl, an extraordinary lecturer in our department. Prof Beckedahl is also a supervisor of Jason le Roux, who closed the conference with his talk on The hydrogeomorphic distribution of wetlands in Eswatini, work based on his current MSc work.

Prof Beckedahl was well-presented, being a co-author of four papers at the conference. Heinz presented or had students present on Moving from land degradation assessment data to informed decision making at country level: a case study from South Africa, A Review Caves in Granite and Granitoid Rock – the Case of Gobholo Caves in Eswatini (Swaziland) (both on Monday), and the two presentations by Jason and Renee on Tuesday. Prof Beckedahl, together with Dr Hansen, also convened the post-conference workshop on Wednesday morning, where Lerato Boihang's work was again presented, this time with a focus on Delineating gully extent using aerial photographs - piece of cake?. Both Prof Beckedahl and Dr Hansen were also part of the 2019 SAAG Conference Organising Committee.

The full programme and book of abstracts is available on the conference website. Also have a look at our gallery.