Linking Scientific Research to Development Agenda

In recent years, the scientific community has been urged to undertake research that can immediately have impact on development issues, including national policies, strategies, and people's livelihoods, among others. While this is a fair call from decision makers, it should also be realized that science by nature is about innovation, discovery and knowledge generation. In this context, there is need for a balance between long term scientific investigations and short term scientific applications. With regard to the former, researchers spend years investigating (or need data of sufficient record length) to provide sound and reliable solutions to a problem at hand while in the latter, it is possible to reach a solution with few selected analyses. In all cases, it is advisable that researchers, where possible should link their studies to topical development issues in their case studies. In this paper, we use a hydrometeorological project in the Notwane catchment, Botswana, to show the importance of linking research to development agenda for mutual benefit of researchers and policy makers. The results indicate that some key development issues are being addressed by the Project and the scope exists to improve the impact of the project.

Soil Sampling Procedures for Chemical Analysis

This chapter describes procedures used in soil sampling and its analysis; as well as why there is need to sample soils and for what purpose. We also describe the different types of soils present in nature and compare the different sampling regimes used in soil studies as well equipment's used, and the associated reagents necessary for a specific analysis. The chapter provides background information to scientists engaged in soil studies.

Emerging Approaches to Data Management for a New Geospatial Science Research

Chapter 19 and Chapter 20 are on the emerging approaches to data management for a new geospatial science research. This chapter gives the essences and the methodologies of data matter perspective, and it has two sections; Section A highlights the subject theme; the essences of geospatial science data matter; while Section B expands that into the geospatial science data methodologies. Chapter 20 is the about the data management optimization perspective. It has only one section; Section C, that develops further the essence and methodologies of geospatial data cultivated in these two previous sections. The whole analytical discussion is in the emerging fields and how they had optimized and totally changed the geospatial science data management panorama.

A Case Study for eCampus Spatial

Location based querying is the core interaction paradigm between mobile citizens and the Internet of Things, so providing users with intelligent web-services that interact efficiently with web and wireless devices to recommend personalised services is a key goal. With today's popular Web Map Services, users can ask for general information at a specific location, but not detailed information such as related functionality or environments. This shortcoming comes from a lack of connection between non-spatial “business” data and spatial “map” data. This chapter presents a novel approach for location-based querying in web and wireless environments, in which non-spatial business data is dynamically connected to spatial base-map data to provide users with spatially-enabled attribute information at particular locations. The proposed approach is illustrated in a case study at the National University of Ireland in Maynooth (NUIM), where detailed 3D campus building models were constructed. Non-spatial university specific business data such as the functionalities and timetables of class rooms/buildings, campus news, noise levels, and navigation are then explored over the web and presented as both mobile and desktop web-services.

Challenges for Sustainable Water Resources Management in Botswana

Like many semi-arid areas of Africa, Botswana continues to experience inadequate water supply particularly in the southern part of the country. In the last ten years, water restrictions have become part of water demand strategy aimed at maintaining sustainable water supply throughout the year. This has affected many economic sectors particularly small scale enterprises which directly rely on water for their business operations such as car wash and landscaping businesses. The issue of inadequate water availability and supply is more pronounced in Gaborone, the capital city of Botswana which relies on Gaborone dam as the main source of water to drive the economy. The dam was last filled to capacity in 2006 and has not spilled since then. While there are several factors affecting the inflows to the dams, rainfall is the principal candidate limiting water availability in the area. Past studies have shown a decline in rainfall and an increase in temperature since 1982. However, there are uncertainties associated with rainfall data, mainly regarding the presence of missing values which affect many hydrological modelling tools. In this chapter, we focus specifically on the effects of missing rainfall data and data infilling strategies on hydrological applications using rainfall and hydrological modelling tools. We also demonstrate the implications of these on spatial rainfall interpolation methods based on Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Our discussion focuses on the value of data as a priority developmental issue which should receive utmost attention particularly in the wake of climate change.

Characterization of Fire Regime Descriptors in Botswana Using Remotely Sensed Data

Despite its role and relevance in environmental management at all scales the use of fire has been contentious. The absence of information on fire parameters compounds the situation. This study derives fire parameter information for Botswana by analyzing MODIS fire data for (2001-2012), using conditional statements, and cluster mapping in ArcGIS. The study also related the fire information to other variables to examine how they interact with fire. The results of the study indicates that over the 12 year period the burned area has exhibited an upward trend. It has also shown that most of the fire in the country occur over the late dry season when the fires are potentially destructive. A south-north transect of fire frequency is observed, accompanied by an inverse relationship between frequency and intensity. Of all the factors, rainfall (0.638) and biomass(NDVI) (0.355) were the most significant contributors to the fire activity. The study demonstrated the utility of the MODIS fire data in characterizing the fire regime of the country and thus contribute to the policy process.

Remote Sensing-Based Evapotranspiration Modelling for Agricultural Water Management in the Limpopo Basin

The study was motivated by the need to determine the spatial variation of ET and to test the applicability of RS based methods in arid to semi-arid climates with limited ground-based measurements. In this paper we present results of an effort of determining spatial actual evapotranspiration in the Limpopo basin, the Notwane subcatchment in the south-eastern part of Botswana, using remote sensing data from MODIS and Landsat Data sets. The Simplified Surface Energy Balance Index (S-SEBI) was applied to determine actual evapotranspiration using the seven bands of Landsat and MODIS surface reflectance and temperature channels. Three different dates were used to estimate ET from both Landsat and MODIS scenes. The estimated ET values from the two sensors show approximately equally comparable results. An assessment was also conducted to determine the factors influencing evapotranspiration. No strong correlation was identified for ET against the five factors investigated: Net radiation, NDVI, Surface Temperature, emissivity and surface albedo.

Participatory Geographic Information Systems Within a Crowdsourcing Environment, With Special Reference to Volunteered Geographic Information

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are essentially concerned with fixing locations of features and attaching data to them. This geographic data is subsequently used in spatial analysis as a means to support problem analysis and solution modeling through exploratory data analysis and experimentation with various alternative solutions. Ultimately GIS is used for informed decision making. With the advent of technologies that support participation, digital mapping, Global Positioning System (GPS), the internet, Web Mapping, Web GIS, Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 technologies and smart phones, many people all over the world have become capacitated to collect and communicate geo-tagged multimedia information, a phenomenon that is known as crowdsourcing. One example of crowdsourcing is incorporating geotagged information collected by volunteers into a GIS. Consequently, crowdsourcing facilitates PGIS to become a powerful practice that can be leveraged to collect geographic data over extensive landscapes and often in near real time.

Case Study

A geophysical survey was carried out in 2012 to map the subsurface geology at a quarry and the village to determine if an alleged damage to houses could have been caused by blasting activity in the quarry. The survey included seismic refraction and reflection recorded with the same spread at source and receiver spacing of 2 m, 3 m, and 5 m. The signal source was a 28-lb. sledge hammer stacked 10 times to increase the S/N. Ground penetrating radar (GPR) was also recorded at a trace spacing of 0.3 m to provide detailed images of the subsurface near the damaged buildings using a 50 MHz unshielded antenna. The seismic refraction and reflection profiles show that the village is underlain by 0-4 m of loose sand, 4-10 m of fractured calcrete, and up to 50 m of fractured silcrete, with the groundwater table at 10-15 m. The GPR images show that the damaged houses sit on thick sand, which cushions them against severe ground vibration. The houses were found to have suffered more damage on the superstructure and this is possibly due to ground vibration amplification at low frequencies of 30-40 Hz.

Satellite Image Classes Categorization Schemes for United Nations Framework Convention on Climatic Change (UNFCCC)

This chapter looks at the disparities between the UNFCCC – GHG – Land-Use and Land-Cover Change (LULCC) remote sensing images classification scheme with that of Botswana for the GHG inventory for the National Representation. This chapter has points out that the Botswana Scheme maximizes the LANDSAT System electromagnetic waves capabilities and maps produced give more classes and better thematic resolution for the classification of land cover classes. Suggestions are made for these two schemes to be reconciled and use the one which gives the best GHG calculated results for inventories for Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Reporting