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Summer School
Assessment of
Tropical Forest and Soil Resources
19th – 24th of August 2024

Fort Portal, Uganda
Apply now until 31st March 2024!

The School's Mission.

Increasing the knowledge base of future leaders of African Research Institutions on monitoring, maintaining, and restoration of soil fertility and plant growth in tropical cropland and forests.

Leading House Africa Seasonal School

About the summer school

At this summer school an international team of researchers will train African and European Scholars in assessing and analyzing tropical soil and forest resources as a tool for climate mitigation and food security projects.

Through a series of hands-on workshops, participants will get familiar with state-of-the-art tools and approaches for assessing land use change effects on plant-soil systems in tropical regions.

The practical works will be accompanied by introductory lectures on links and feedback between different soil biogeochemical cycles and vegetation focusing on how human intervention and global change alter these cycles. 

The summer school will be conducted in close cooperation with and at the venue of Kyaninga Forest Foundation (KFF) and Mountain of the Moon University (MMU) that are involved in forest conservation and restoration, as well as improving soil health and combating soil degradation on agricultural land. 

What can you learn in each workshop?

During the week of the Summer School each participant can visit two multi-day workshops from the following list (Lectures, excursions and networking events are joined by everyone!).

Workshop I: Assessing depth-explicit soil features using percussion drilling.

This workshop aims at teaching how to plan and conduct soil sampling campaigns that can deliver significant spatial-explicit information on subsoils in tropical forest and agricultural landscapes with first hand examples from soil drillings being analysed during the seasonal school by the participants. Read more…

Workshop II: Use low-cost infrared spectroscopy in soil analyses.

In this workshop you will learn about the required sample processing and sample measurements on a mid-infrared (MIR) spectrometer and get hands on experience with data management and analyses operating a MIR spectrometer. Read more…

Workshop III: Remote and proximal sensing for soil and vegetation monitoring.

The workshop provides training on access, processing, analysis, and interpretation of freely available spaceborne data for Eastern Africa. During the workshop the data will be used to teach on land use change detection, applied to show the dramatic land use change in the region since the 1990s. Read more…

Workshop IV: Reforestation implementation and monitoring of tree establishment.

This workshop seeks to present methodologies currently utilized for measuring the growth rates of the trees within the forest on a tree-by-tree and plot-by-plot basis. Read more…

Workshop V: Measuring in-situ greenhouse gas fluxes across land use systems.

This workshop aims to address the current technical capacity gap in designing and conducting green house gas measurement campaigns in Eastern Africa. Tools include customized  gas collection chambers ,  an ultra-portable laser based GHG analyser and calculating GHG fluxes from GHG concentrations using a demo dataset. Read more…

Who can apply? And is there support funding?

Open for PhD level researchers and technical staff 

Everyone can apply, but our main target group are East African nationals enrolled in national and international PhD and Master programs in Environmental and Agricultural Sciences as well as technicians at key institutions and holding a related Master degree. 

The summer school is open for up to 25 participants with the majority reserved for participants from African institutions.  

Support funding for partial and full funding of participation at the summer school including accommodation and travel costs is available for all scholars in need. Apply here! Deadline for Applications: 31st March 2024.

The organizers of the workshop will support you with all travel and participation related issues. Estimated costs for the workshop week including accommodation and travel arrangements without funds from our support program are estimated between 1500-3000 USD, depending on your travel route. 

Reach out to us for more details and questions concerning your eligibility for supporting funds at: info@tropires.org

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