“The WfW Programme has made no provision for routine project monitoring or evaluation in relation to ecological responses to alien clearing. Even research in this regard is scant. Currently performance is measured on alien clearing efficiency (hectares cleared) rather than on degree of vegetation recovery. Without measuring the impacts of clearing, managers have no idea whether they are using the optimal approach, degrading or improving ecological integrity” - WfW External Evaluation (2003).
Solutions:
- Dye and Poulter (1995) conduced a field demonstration of the effect on streamflow of clearing invasive pine and wattle trees from a riparian zone
- Dye and Jarmain (2004) reviewed relevant available information on rates of evaporation from black wattle and from grasslands and fynbos shrublands
- Levendal et al. (2008) developed monitoring and evaluation guidelines for the biophysical goals of WfW
- Hope (2009) investigated the viability of relating annual river yields to remotely sensed changes in vegetation cover in a large mountainous fynbos catchment
- Meijninger & Jarmain (2009) assessed the impact that invasive alien plants, and the clearing therof by WfW, has on the availability of water resources in the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal provinces
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