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Southern African Society of Aquatic Scientists Conference
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Workshop on estuary monitoring: New approaches and lessons learnt
Monday 2 July 2012
The Department of Water Affairs’ national estuarine monitoring programme was developed in 2008 to facilitate an integrated approach to estuarine management and associated monitoring.
The programme complements a number of other estuarine monitoring initiatives that are currently being undertaken or considered by various organisations.The resource requirements of long-term estuarine monitoring of drivers and response indicators necessitate the coordination and integration of the different initiatives to ensure sustainability and to prevent duplication of effort.
The purpose of this workshop is to identify existing long-term monitoring programmes in South Africa, how these programmes can be integrated, how these programmes can incorporate new knowledge and methodologies and to standardise the use of scientific instruments, laboratory analyses, sampling methodology, mapping techniques, etc. to ensure comparability.
Objectives and outcomes:
- identify key stakeholders undertaking estuarine monitoring;
- determine the current level of estuarine monitoring being undertaken in South Africa;
- identify temporal and spatial scale of monitoring efforts (gap identification);
- discuss suitability of different monitoring equipment (e.g. data loggers);
- discuss need for regular inter-calibration of laboratories;
- identify current GIS mapping techniques and data requirements of the scientific and management community;
- create awareness and stimulate discussion to facilitate further research and development into estuarine monitoring; and
- launch the South African Estuarine Information Systems Database.
Draft programme:
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