Professor Mary Scholes
Visiting Research Fellow, February - March 2023
Home Institution: University of the Witwatersrand
Prof Mary Scholes, a graduate of the University of the Witwatersrand, is currently a full professor in the School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences and holder of a Research Chair in Global Change and Systems Analysis. Her research activities focus on systems analysis in a variety of disciplines including soil fertility, food security and biogeochemistry in savannas, rangelands, plantation forests and croplands. She is currently actively involved in monitoring water pollution, food security, forestry and climate change and policy implementation in South Africa. Her publication record is extensive; she has mentored over 85 postgraduate students and she teaches at postgraduate and undergraduate levels at the University. She has been awarded the Vice-Chancellor's Teaching, Research and Academic Citizen Awards. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa, the South African Academy of Science, the World Academy of Sciences and the African Academy of Sciences. She is the recipient of several national and international awards including being elected as a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Agriculture and Forestry.
Project title: An investigation of the social-ecological interactions in landscape studies, bringing together the qualitative and quantitative approaches used in biophysical and social studies
The Social-Ecological Systems (SES) approach aims to optimise social capital (sustainable livelihood strategies) and natural capital (sediment yield, fire, soil carbon, rangelands, ecological health), with the active participation of multisectoral stakeholders, catchment residents, government officials, industry and research institutions. Observation systems form the basis of advancing understanding needed to inform management and decision-making. An observation system should simultaneously and compatibly monitor social conditions, ecological state and water yield and quality. This project will adopt a systems-based approach, through soft-coupling existing spatial and temporal models and approaches (including systems dynamics and spatial modelling) to design and test an integrated observation system. Various sources and types of data (temporal, spatial, biophysical and social) at different scales and collection frequencies will be considered for suitability as potential inputs in developing a set of Essential Variables and indicators for the observation system. The overall study will adopt a broad approach to create a vision of a complex system rather than focussing in depth on one aspect of the system, but will be confined through the application of the Essential Variables approach in which the smallest possible set of critical variables that capture the key dimensions of the system will be observed. Two drivers of sustainability will be studied - fire and its usage and impacts on soil carbon in grazed rangelands - these drivers having been chosen as they have a very long history in South Africa that predates colonisation.