Seasonal monitoring of forage C:N:ADF ratio in natural rangeland using remote sensing data.

In recent decades, natural rangelands have emerged as vital sources of livelihood and ecological services, particularly in Southern Africa, supporting communities in developing regions. However, the escalating global demand for food, driven by a growing human population, has led to the extensive expansion of cultivated areas, resulting in continuous nutrient leaching in rangelands. To ensure the long-term viability of these ecosystems, there is a need to develop effective approaches for managing and monitoring the seasonality of forage quality.

Seasonal evaluation and mapping of aboveground biomass in natural rangelands using Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 data.

Rangelands play a vital role in developing countries' biodiversity conservation and economic growth, since most people depend on rangelands for their livelihood. Aboveground-biomass (AGB) is an ecological indicator of the health and productivity of rangeland and provides an estimate of the amount of carbon stored in the vegetation. Thus, monitoring seasonal AGB is important for understanding and managing rangelands' status and resilience.

Using mulching to reduce soil surface temperature to facilitate grass production.

Ecosystems in semi-arid and arid Southern Africa experience high temperatures which translate to extremely hot soil surface temperatures. High soil surface temperatures lead to a decrease in seed germination and consequently less plant cover in these areas. To facilitate maintenance of optimum plant cover, soil surface temperature should be moderated with appropriate mitigation techniques.

Quantifying rehabilitation risks for surface-strip coal mines using a soil compaction Bayesian network in South Africa and Australia: To demonstrate the R AIN Framework.

Environmental information is acquired and assessed during the environmental impact assessment process for surface-strip coal mine approval. However, integrating these data and quantifying rehabilitation risk using a holistic multidisciplinary approach is seldom undertaken. We present a rehabilitation risk assessment integrated network (R AIN™) framework that can be applied using Bayesian networks (BNs) to integrate and quantify such rehabilitation risks.

Yield, resource use efficiency and trace metal uptake of weeping lovegrass grown on municipal sludge-amended soil.

Background: There are concerns that fertilization using sludge in semi-arid areas, where water is limiting, will compound the effect of drought, resulting in the decline of yield from potential salt accumulation. This study investigated impacts of annual sludge application at 0, 4, 8 and 16 Mg ha on weeping lovegrass hay yield, crude protein (CP) content, rainfall use efficiency (RUE), nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) and trace metal uptake over eight consecutive years.

Results: Both hay yield and RUE increased by 5-53% as the sludge rate increased.