faculty of natural resources and spatial sciences...

Faculty of Natural Resources and Spatial Sciences

Date: Tuesday, 16 August 2016Time: 08:00 - 13:30Venue: Marula Conference Room, NUST Hotel School, Beethoven Street

Research Day ProgrammeTheme: “Building Postgraduate Research Structures at the Faculty of Natural Resources and Spatial Sciences”

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2nd FNRSS Research Day, 16 August 2016

“Building Postgraduate Research Structures at the Faculty of Natural Resources and Spatial Sciences”

Director of Ceremonies: Dr Mutjinde KatjiuaAssociate Professor: Land and Property Sciences

1. Programme

Time Activity / Topic Presenter / Responsible

8:00 Arrival of Participants

8:10 Welcome Dr Rolf Becker Dean, FNRSS

8:20 Guest Speaker: The Crucial Role of Critical Thinking for Research

Dr Mary Seely former Director of the Desert Ecological Research Unit, Gobabeb; founder and former Director of the Desert Research Foundation (DRFN), meanwhile DRFN Associate

8:50 Staff Presentation: The potential of the new Sentinel 2 satellite for spatial and environmental research in Namibia

Dr Carlos de WasseigeDGST, Associate Professor

9:15 Student Presentation 1:Impacts of fire history and frost on vegeta-tion structure and species composition in a semi-arid savanna woodland

Vistorina AmputuDANR, MSc Natural Resources Management (current student)

9:40 Student Presentation 2:The effects of fire history on soil nutrients, soil organic carbon and soil respiration in a semi-arid woodland savanna, central Namibia

Elise N NghalipoDANR, MSc Natural Resources Management (current student)

10:05 Staff Presentation:Migration of Poly-DB to SDI: Advantages and Current stages

Dr Carlos de WasseigeDGST, Associate Professor Erich NaosebDGST, Junior Lecturer

10:30 Coffee / Tea Break with sandwiches Lobby in front of Marula Room

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11:00 Student Presentation 3:Comparative analysis between government -funded and private small-scale irrigation schemes in Namibia

Emmanuel NafeleFNRSS, Master of Integrated Land Management (current student)

11:25 Student Presentation 4:Production frontier of small scale pearl mil-let farmers under conservation agriculture in northern Namibia

Montle Bonolo PontshoDANR, Master Agribusiness Management

11:50 Student Presentation 5: Flexible Land Tenure Implementation in Namibia: Case Study of informal settlement registration and title allocation using the QGIS-Plugin “STDM” (Social Tenure Domain Model).

Robin Menzel GIZ Intern with MLR/DGST, Master Student Berlin-Beuth (current student)Sebastian SchneiderGIZ Intern with NTA/ProCom, Bachelor Student University of Bonn (current student)

12:15 Student Presentation 6:Governance in Customary Tenure Systems: Does the Communal Land Reform Act support traditional leaders to become more transparent and accountable?

Ndeshihafela N NekundiDLPS, Bachelor in Land Administration (current student)

12:40 Student Presentation 7:Urbanisation and Sustainable Development: From Informal settlements to integrated, inclusive, safe resilient and sustainable neighbourhoods.

Elao Martin, Ndeshipanda Iita, Aina Shiimi, Christopher NakuumbaDASP, Bachelor Architecture (current students)

13:05 Closing and Vote of Thanks Dr Rolf Becker

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2. Topics Abstracts

1) Guest Speaker Presentation: Dr Mary Seely, Desert Research Foundation of Namibia (DRFN), Associate:

The crucial role of critical thinking for research

Critical thinking is the key ingredient required for successful research, particularly at the MSc, PhD levels and beyond. It is essential to have identified and formulated a key question to be investigated, to fully understand the background to your question and why you are addressing it and to be familiar with published material on the topic. All of these elements of the research process should be frequently reviewed. It is also important to know how the results of your research might be used and to disseminate these results not only to the academic community but a broad spectrum of potentially interested persons. Critical thinking is the backbone of all you attempt to do in research.

2) Staff Presentation: Dr Carlos de Wasseige, DGST, Associate Professor:

The potential of the new Sentinel 2 satellite for spatial and environmental research in Namibia

Since recently a growing flow of Sentinel-2 data are freely available all over the world including Namibia. Nearly every 3 days new images are available for part of the country (and nearly every day in 2017). For a same area, this revisiting period is currently 10 days (5 days in 2017). These 10m resolution data are becoming the new reference data for high resolution change monitoring. Sentinel-2 is designed for near real time high resolution operational monitoring system. With its 13 bands, specifically focusing on vegetated land cover, it can be used for a wide range of application requiring frequent high spatial resolution data.

3) Student Presentation 1: Vistorina Amputu, DANR, MSc Natural Resources Manage-ment (completed, graduating in October 2016):

Impacts of fire history and frost on vegetation structure and species composition in a semi-arid savanna woodland

Fires cannot be disregarded when considering the management of rangelands for both domestic livestock and wildlife. A disturbance that is rarely studied and may be important to understand is frost occurrence in savannas. In the Waterberg it occurs frequently, particularly in low-lying areas. A total of four fire blocks with different fire histories were surveyed. The frost study was conducted in an area with a clear dune-interdune effect. Findings show that fire positively (p < 0.05) affected the grass



component by increasing grass density and enhancing productivity. The frost study showed that, frost indirectly influences the grass component positively through top-kill of woody plants that allows more light penetration to the herbaceous layer. Frost has a greater effect on species composition than fire.

4) Student Presentation 2: Elise N. Nghalipo, DANR, Master of Natural Resource Management (completed, graduating in October 2016):

The effects of fire history on soil nutrients, soil organic carbon and soil respiration in a semi-arid woodland savanna, central Namibia

Fire is common in many terrestrial ecosystems, including African savannas. The degree to which fire impacts soil nutrients, soil carbon, and soil respiration remains uncertain in semi-arid woodlands. This study aims to fill this critical gap in our understanding. For soil nutrients and SOC, soil samples were collected in four fire treatments with different fire history (time since last burn 1- 25 years) and chemical analyses were performed at the soil Laboratory. Soil respiration was measured with a LI-6400XT. Fire history had limited and inconsistent effects, hence did not cause long-term detrimental impacts and impair the recovery of soil resources.

5) Staff Presentation : Dr Carlos de Wasseige, DGST, Associate Professor and Erich Naoseb, DGST, Junior Lecturer:

Migration of Poly-DB to SDI, advantages and current stages

The implementation of Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDIs) for governments and companies is a task that has gained ample attention in recent years. In 2011, a document titled: “Towards the Implementation of Polytechnic’s Spatial Data Infrastructure (PSDI)”, briefly outlined the envisaged conceptual framework for data storage. Since that time, some activities related to data labelling, quality control, management and harmonisation and have been tempted, but never implemented in an SDI. After having met several time, a group of experts in the domain have selected GEONODE as the SDI of NUST. This presentation will give you the key features of the system and the current stage of the implementation.

6) Student Presentation 3: Emmanuel Nafele, FNRSS, Master of Integrated Land Management (current student):

Comparative analysis between government funded and private small-scale irrigation schemes in Namibia

The study examined factors influencing household income from small scale irrigation schemes using a case study of a government funded irrigation scheme

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of Etunda and a community initiated irrigation scheme of Epalela in Namibia. A Weighted Least Square model was used to analyse data that were collected from household heads involved in the schemes. The key findings were that small-scale irrigation is dominated by male farmers. In terms of factors that influence the household income levels in government-funded irrigation schemes, gender was the main determinant whereas for community-initiated schemes it was access to farm equipment. It is interesting to note the estimated coefficient was negative implying that as age increases productivity is reduced implying a requirement for current gender policy shifts. The implication is that there is need for policy instruments to address gender balance. Moreover, it is highly recommended to (i) strengthen technical and organizational capacity (farmers associations, groups, cooperatives) of farmers, (ii) strengthen producers’ human capital so as to improve their ability to draft viable business plans and record keeping and (iii) to extend public sector support to community initiated irrigation schemes in the area of technology and irrigation infrastructure.

7) Student Presentation 4: Montle Bonolo Pontsho, DANR, Masters Agribusiness Management:

Production frontier of small scale pearl millet farmers under conservation agriculture in northern Namibia

This This study fits a stochastic Cobb-Douglas production frontier of pearl millet smallholder farmers and examined their technical efficiency comparing Conservation and Traditional Agriculture practices. The data was collected using a structured questionnaire administrated to 100 randomly selected smallholder farmers in Omusati, Ohangwena, Oshikoto, Oshana and Kavango regions during the 2014-2015 planting season. The estimated parameter of the model shows that land availability, the level of fertilizer use and tractor power explains variations in the production of pearl millet. The efficiency analysis result shows that there is no statistically significant difference in the technical efficiency of farmers who were exposed to conservation agriculture compared to their traditional method of agriculture. The inefficiency model indicates that farming experience, farm size, and farm training have significant positive effect on efficiency. In addition, the study examined farmers’ willingness to pay for extension services; the predicted probability of getting farmers who are willing to pay is 60%. Farmers’ socio-economic characteristics were found to influence farmers’ willingness to pay. The study recommends that Conservation Agriculture should be continued and over a long period of time so that the impact can be felt. Capacity building, training, extension services, information on agronomic practices and farmer’s education are factors that policy must address.



8) Student Presentation 5: Robin Menzel, GIZ-Intern at DGST and MSc Student Geoinformation Technology, Technical University Berlin-Beuth and Sebastian Schneider, GIZ-Intern at ProCom and BSc Student Geography, Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn):

Flexible Land Tenure Implementation in Namibia: Case Study of Informal Settlement registration and title allocation with the QGIS-Plugin “STDM”

The presentation illustrates the digital implementation of the Flexible Land Tenure Act (FLTS) in Namibia. The act was passed to provide low-income households in informal settlements with tenure security. Since the data of the registration will be kept in analogue registers, a digital alternative should be implemented as well. Therefore, the QGIS-Plugin “STDM” (Social Tenure Domain Model) that was originally developed by UN Habitat, is presently being tested. This plugin is currently used by the Namibia Housing Action Group to field-test registering people in the informal settlement pilot project “Freedom Square” in Gobabis. During a test and trial period, the tool must now be customized to satisfy the requirements as a FLTS-compatible land administration tool. To adapt the tool to the requirements, a customized database structure was created and selected use case scenarios are presently being developed in collaboration with the Ministry of Land Reform. Further modifications of the software to meet the specific requirements of the FLTS in Namibia are presently under discussion with the STDM-Developers in at UN Habitat in Nairobi.

9) Student Presentation 6: Ndeshihafela N. Nekundi, DLPS, Bachelor in Land Administration (current student):

Governance in customary tenure systems: does the Communal Land Reform Act support Traditional Leaders to become more transparent and accountable?

The Traditional Authorities (TAs) in Namibia are highly involved in the governance of customary tenure systems in Namibia. The transparency and accountability in their operations, especially in land administration, is constantly questioned. The presentation will discuss the findings of research on whether the Communal Land Reform Act of 2002, which is the main legislation governing land administration in the communal areas, supports TAs to be more transparent and accountable in dealing with the administration of customary land. It concludes that while the Act improves accountability to Communal Land Boards, there are no provisions to enforce accountability and transparency of traditional leaders towards subjects under their respective jurisdictions.

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10) Student Presentation 7: Elao Martin, Ndeshipanda Iita, Aina Shiimi, Christopher Nakuumba, DASP, Bachelor Architecture (current students):

Urbanization and Sustainable Development: From Informal Settlements to Integrated, Inclusive, Safe Resilient and Sustainable Neighbourhoods.

As a result of rapid urbanization in Windhoek there is an increase in informal settlements on the periphery of the city. The African Urbanization course presented a project tasking students to study an informal settlement on the northwest periphery of the city and propose upgrading solutions in line with the concepts of sustainability and urbanity. The featured project intervenes on 3 layers; a land use proposal, a housing intervention, and communal infrastructure. These proposed interventions incorporate sustainable solutions to improve the identified problems of housing, water, sanitation drainage, food system, schools, health care, access, mobility, common spaces, solid waste, energy, and communications whilst integrating existing skills and identity to create a resilient community.



NOTES

Faculty of Natural Resources and Spatial Sciences

Office of the DeanNamibia University of Science and TechnologyPrivate Bag 13388WindhoekNAMIBIA

T: + 264 61 207 2146F: + 264 61 207 9146E: [email protected]

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