Timeframe of the event: 5 days
Applicant(s): Prof. Sebastian Dötterl
Discipline/research area of the event: Biogeochemistry, tropical soils, tropical reforestation, carbon monitoring
Overall format of the event (e.g. conference, workshop): Workshop
Land use change in Africa accelerates at an unprecedented rate and understanding its impact on tropical soil and forest resources Understanding is essential if goals such as those laid out in the AFR100 are to be met. In a recent high-impact publication by Cuni-Sanchez et al. (2021) the important role of the critically endangered African tropical mountain forests for global climate has been highlighted, with examples taken from the focus region of our workshop, Kibale national park and the surrounding cropland, receiving international media attention (Macheroux-Denault 2021).
Paired with the food demands of a growing population and the risks of climate-driven shifts in the suitability of sub-Saharan African land for rainfed agriculture, it is paramount to increase the knowledge base of future leaders of African Research Institutions on monitoring, maintaining, and restoring soil fertility and plant growth in tropical cropland and forests.I am planning to organize a summer school that focuses on teaching modern methods for assessing land use change effects on plant-soil systems in tropical regions co-hosted by ETH Zurich and Kyaninga Forest Foundation in Fort Portal, Uganda. I specifically target African (MSc or PhD Level) young researchers and students that will become key players in securing African land resources for future generations. The summer school will draw its content from a wide range of activities that my group and I have implemented in the past years.
Through a combination of introductory lectures, held by renowned experts, and in combination with participatory hands-on workshop and excursions, we will illustrate the requirements and approaches that proved important for the successful implementation of soil- and vegetation-focused projects in the fields of tropical forest restoration and sustaining soil fertility on agricultural land. Furthermore, the summer school will be conducted in close cooperation with local NGOs and research institutions that are involved in forest conservation and restoration, as well as improving soil health and combating soil degradation on agricultural land. Five subject workshops are planned:
Workshop I: Assessing depth-explicit soil features using percussion drilling
Soil degradation in tropical landscapes can leave a lasting effect on soil properties that can perpetuate nutrient cycling, plant growth, and severely impact the capacity of soils to store carbon. Assessment techniques that analyse the surface properties of soils thereby only address a small part of the soil column. Subsoils, which can differ greatly in their functionality and composition are often not part of the investigation of the effects of land cover change and the consequences of soil erosion and deposition.
Gathering knowledge on tropical subsoils is crucial for our understanding of tropical soil landscapes. Subsoils are spatially highly diverse and can store crucial information on the future carrying capacity of the soil, as well as the ability of soils to release nutrients by weathering, or the turnover and recalcitrance of soil carbon stored inside them. 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.
Workshop II: Use low-cost infrared spectroscopy in soil analyses
The lack of specific chemicals and instruments in low-income countries makes traditional wet chemistry analyses expensive, if not impossible. In the last decades, infrared (IR) spectroscopy has proven to be a fast and cost-effective method to analyse the properties of soils which allows high Swiss National Science Foundation | 2 spatial coverage The absorbance of IR caused by the vibrations of organic and mineral molecules at specific wavenumber ranges allows the derivation of soil physical, chemical and biological properties.
The low running costs of IR spectroscopy instruments and their resilience to disturbance and robustness provide a large potential in developing countries. But the knowledge base in the science behind and application of the technology as well as skills in data management and statistical analysis are often a large constraint. Participants of this workshop 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 provided by the applicant’s group at ETH Zurich.
Workshop III: Remote and proximal sensing for soil and vegetation monitoring
Spaceborne and proximal sensing have made ground-breaking contributions to understanding ecosystem change and dynamics. For the target area, an exciting database of freely available imagery derived from LandSat satellite missions and our own unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) missions from past projects are available. These data offer critically important insight on ecosystem processes also for regions with limited infrastructure.
Recently launched satellite constellations of the EU’s Copernicus mission provide excitingly high spatio-temporal resolution of optical and radar data (to understand field scale cropland health. Furthermore, affordable proximal sensing sensors for ground and UAV based assessment of spatial patterns on plant and soil properties have reached maturity in terms of reliability and data processing. Therefore, UAVs provide full flexibility on spatial resolution and acquisition timing, which makes them an ideal tool for ecosystem assessments in areas with high spatio-temporal dynamics such as in East Africa. The workshop provides training on access, processing, analysis, and interpretation of freely available spaceborne data for western Uganda.
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.
Workshop IV: Reforestation implementation and monitoring of tree establishment
Tropical forests are a key biome in the global carbon cycle, storing an estimated 40-50% of terrestrial vegetation carbon. In the vast majority of East Africa, montane forests represent a significantly higher-proportion of total forest cover when compared to lowland forests, with Uganda having nearly 20 times more (427,000 ha of montane forest, 18,000 ha of lowland forest). Since 1995, nearly 6500 ha of forest have been restored in Kibale Forest National Park using a combination of methods, including active and passive (natural) restoration.
As global awareness about the importance of forests as a tool for carbon sequestration grows, utilizing such unique, already-gained knowledge, is critical to understand best-practice approaches for similar forest landscapes. Therefore, the 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. Using Field-Mapping equipment and software, each tree is geotagged, and diverse size measurements are recorded.
Workshop V: Measuring in-situ greenhouse gas fluxes across land use systems
Despite the wide recognition that tropical soils under different land use systems represent both significant sources and sinks of climate-relevant greenhouse gases (GHGs), empirical studies based on in-situ field soil GHG measurements are still limited, creating major uncertainties in global GHG budgets. Logistical challenges in setting up GHG flux measurement infrastructure in the tropics together with the lack of the necessary technical expertise to carry out accurate and reliable GHG measurements, largely explain why the tropics are still under-represented in global soil GHG budgets.
This workshop, therefore, aims to address the current technical capacity gap in GHG measurements for researchers from the global south through training on how to; (1) design in-situ field soil GHG measurements, (2) design gas chambers that effectively capture the expected spatial variability of GHGs, (3) randomly install chambers in the field for representative soil GHG flux measurements, (4) necessary preparation for successful gas sample collection, (5) sample GHG using established protocols (6) exemplary demonstration of GHG measurements using a ultra-portable laser based GHG analyser, (7) calculate GHG fluxes from GHG concentrations using a demo dataset.
The suggested workshop aims at bringing together European and African researchers to train African students and technicians enrolled and employed at African Universities or research institutes. The concrete outcomes that are planned from this seasonal school are that a dynamic mix of international researchers, practitioners and students come together to gain a greater understanding of some of the more technologically advanced environmental analysis techniques used in modern research in some of the remote regions of the world.
The school specifically targets some of the most important tools and analytical techniques that are emerging as critical assets to prepare the next generation of African researchers for sustaining, monitoring, and restoring tropical land resources. With this, the participants will develop a deeper understanding of implementing science-informed and data-driven decision-making in tropical land management. Vice-versa, the invited European and African experts on specific methods and techniques gain first-hand experience during the workshop regarding the local challenges for implementations of suggested methods and have the opportunity to explore previously unknown fields of application. Furthermore, it will provide a networking opportunity for students from different African countries to both connect with each other and their respective African institutions but also to a mix of European institutions, offering opportunity for future collaboration.
The summer school will be held (physically) in equal parts as a mixture of plenary lectures in which (i) all participants join in and (ii) targeted workshops in break-out groups in which students split up with respect to their own research and technical interests. Thereby, the students can join the various experts to complete field and laboratory work and gain hands-on experience with the required techniques and tools used. Conceptually, each student will be able to join a total of three targeted workshops from the fields detailed above, allowing for a an expansive educational programme bringing together a wide range of students and speaker, creating a truly dynamic mix of attendee.
Conceptually, following one day of introductory lectures, each day will be structured as a mix of theory (morning) belonging to a specific workshop which is then taking the students to test sites for demonstration (afternoon). After workshops have been kicked off by the respective leaders, students are encouraged to work in groups on their own projects and decide upon a research question or to reach a specific objective with the newly acquired skills. Finally, all groups will give a presentation on the last day presenting the results of their work. An additional 8 days are needed for the preparation of the workshop by the organizing team and workshop leaders.
The summer school is designed to be held in late 2023 or at the beginning of 2024 at the onset of the local rainy season over a timeframe of 6 workdays. Additional funding from the European Association of Geochemistry (EAG) and the ETH4D Foundation has been acquired already and will be complemented by our own in-kind contribution (Seen annex 1). The requested sum of 25k CHF through the SNSF Exchange grant is to cover for the missing budget and used entirely in accordance with SNSF regulations for the exchange grant funding line (accommodation and flights).
Due to the nature of the event with workshops planned on site in order to tackle pressing issues of tropical land use change and sustainable land use, it is necessary to run the event in a tropical target country (Fort Portal, Uganda) with hosting institutions that can provide the necessary infrastructure (Kyaninga Forest Foundation & Mountain of the Moon University). This step has been discussed and approved previously by SNSF (communication with Matt Kimmich in December 21, added as Annex 5).
There will be 8 active speakers (see profile in annex 2) from 6 different countries, representing 6 different academic research institutions (ETH Zurich, Augsburg University, Kyaninga Forest Foundation, World Agroforestry Centre, Ugandan National Agricultural Research Organization, Mountain of the Moon University, Ghent University). Three of the workshops will be hosted by two of the active participants, a senior researcher and an early-career researcher from the specified field, whilst two of the workshops will be held individually by a lead researcher together with local support staff. We have estimated the total expenses for this event with 60k CHF which includes all costs for the preparation and conduct of the event as well as the accommodation and transport for all participants and invited speakers (see annex 3 for overview).
Funding for the active participants will be completely covered by the aforementioned co-financing, allowing the SNSF grant to be used fully for student participation. Within the active speakers, particular attention was paid to ensure wherever possible a balance in gender was achieved and an equal selection of both European and African speakers. Miss Summerauer, Miss Ekyaligonza and Dr. Pittaki-Chrysodonta represent the female speakers in the group reflecting a 40% female participation. Furthermore, Mr Cooper, Ms Summerauer, Ms. Ekyaligonza and Mr Tamale are either still completing their PhD’s or have only done so very recently and therefore comprise of the early-career researchers.
Beyond the active participants, 20 environmental science and agricultural students, early career researchers or research technicians from African countries across the tropical belt together with Swiss students with a focus on tropical land use change and land management will be selected. These students will have a minimum of a Masters (or be in the process of completing a Masters) and be following a relevant scientific field. In order to ensure a fair participation of both men and women amongst the participants, we will pay particular attention to achieve gender balance for accepted student applications to the workshop. Furthermore, the total number of students will be broken down as evenly as possible per country and has been decided based on proximity and ease of travel:
Uganda – 4 students, Kenya – 4 students, Rwanda – 4 students, Kongo (Kivu) – 2 students, DR Congo (Katanga) – 2 students, Nigeria – 2 students, Tanzania – 2 students. If not enough applications are received from the targeted countries, we will encourage direct invitations of participants by targeting specific academic institutions and stakeholders in the African great lakes region (ICRAF, IITA, etc.), based on academic performance and subject interest. Additionally, staff members of the hosting institution, KFF, will gain exposure to scientific practices and techniques, broadening their understanding of what they witness when working together with rural Ugandan farmers. It is our aim that each of the students will present their experiences and gained skills to an audience of students and supervisors once they return to their institutes. Furthermore, it is foreseen to stream some segments of the workshop whilst the remainder will be recorded and made these available via the YouTube channel of Kyaninga Forest Foundation. Local universities will also be informed of the streaming timetable via promotional material published through Facebook and Twitter.
The concrete outcomes that are planned from this summer school are that a dynamic mix of international researchers, practitioners and students come together to gain a greater understanding of some of the more technologically advanced environmental analysis techniques used in modern research in some of the remote regions of the world. The trickledown effect of such a workshop is that a wider selection of researchers can begin employing state of the art techniques in some of the most under researched regions. Students will learn about the diversity of tropical plant-soil systems and that counter measures to combat degradation and restore ecosystems, have to be carefully implemented and diversified. Through the participatory workshops students will be offered the opportunity to get hands-on skills on data assessment and research on the topics addressed during the lectures.
The main outcome is for participants to develop a holistic understanding of implementing science-informed and data-driven decision-making in tropical land management. The success of the event will be evaluated using a series of questionnaires and feedback forms that will be completed before the student’s arrival and again on the morning of departure. We will also hold a feedback session on the last day to have an open discussion about what has been the most useful and applicable parts of the workshop and those that may need modifications to make them more accessible. Lastly, the long-term outcome of a successful conduct of this kick-off event will be that follow-up versions of the summer school will become a regular event in the academic calendar of the involved institutions and create a knowledge sharing platform for both North and South institutions.