A team of four students from the University of Pretoria’s Department of Geography, Geoinformatics and Meteorology (UP GGM) presented their work at the National Wetlands Indaba 2023 (NWI 2023), including (alphabetical order):

• Ms Lukho Goso – Using geospatial methods to assess the biodiversity and protection levels of Africa’s rivers (MSc GeoInformatics, Water Research Commission (RDI) Roadmap Bursary)
• Ms Nkosingizwile Ndlovu – Assessing changes in the hydrological regime of lacustrine wetlands in the Maputaland Coastal Plain, South Africa (MSc Geoinformatics, funded by SANSA)
• Ms Mpho Sadiki – Assessing gaps in the National Wetland Inventories of African countries for responding to the Global Biodiversity Framework Targets 1-3 (PhD Geoinformatics, Digital Earth Africa)
• Mr Philani Apleni – Quantifying the rates of change of wetland ecosystem functional groups in the Maputaland Coastal Plain: Implications for restoration and conservation (MSc Geoinformatics, Water Research Commission (WRC) & the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)

The talks were well received and stimulated interesting discussions. The team then also presented a 1.5 workshop on Wednesday afternoon, allowing interaction between stakeholders and themselves with their results via their laptops and banners. The team was accompanied by Dr Heidi van Deventer, lead of the Water Research Commission project for the Maputaland Coastal Plain project (2021-2023) and Dr Ilse Aucamp from Equispectives Pty Ltd, the social scientists who collaborated on the project. 

Photo, with names from left to right: Dr Ilse Aucamp, Ms Mpho Sadiki, Mr Philani Apleni, Ms Lukho Goso, Dr Heidi van Deventer and Ms Nkosingizwile Ndlovu. The team is standing by the NWI 2023 awards