Cape Town - Professor Mark New, director of the UCT African Climate and Development Initiative (ACDI), along with his team of researchers, has received the accolade of being the National Champion for South Africa 2023 by the Frontiers Planet Prize, an international science competition.
The team was awarded for their research on how nature-based solutions (NbS), like invasive alien tree clearing, can reduce risks to water security from climate change and land degradation.
“This is outlined in their paper titled “Nature-based solutions in mountain catchments reduce impact of anthropogenic climate change on drought streamflow”.
The prize aims to directly fund and accelerate scientific research to stabilise the planetary ecosystem.
New was awarded along with ACDI researchers Petra Holden, Piotr Wolski, Romaric Odoulami, Joyce Kimutai, Tiro Nkemelang and Kamoru Lawal, and collaborating researcher Alana Rebello from the Agricultural Research Council.
They tested if catchment restoration through removing alien invasive trees could have ameliorated the impacts of climate change on Cape Town’s 2015-2018 drought, and found that restoration of catchments heavily invaded by woody alien plants could offset some of the anthropogenically derived drought risk.
However, the team also found that because human influence on drought risk was already quite large, catchment restoration could not completely offset climate change impacts.
Holden, lead author of the paper, said: “Our paper showed the importance of integrating NbS into a broader portfolio of adaptation options for managing water resources under climate change.
“I am grateful to have had the opportunity to lead this paper under New’s guidance and with a team of inspiring African scientists. It means a lot to me that African-led research and NbS are being showcased globally.”
New was still figuring out how best to use the prize to deepen their research and scale its impact.
One idea was to develop an EBA academy where policymakers, community organisations, landscape custodians and others can be trained in nature-based solutions, helping to grow local green economic development.
New said: “The paper that won the prize is the cumulation of five years of research, involving a large team of researchers, and builds on many other papers, datasets, and research outputs.
“I’m really happy that the prize is recognising the role of local solutions, which if scaled, can have planetary-scale impacts.”