SARVA Workshop

Exploring Global Change Risk and Vulnerability in 21st Century South Africa

The world is facing a number of complex global challenges. These include changes in the climate system as well as changes in biophysical and human systems such as urbanization, deforestation, biodiversity loss and, more recently, the rise of pandemics. The South Africa Risk and Vulnerability Atlas 3.0 unites multi-disciplinary datasets from a range of organizations in a single point of access in order to address these challenges. SARVA translates this open access data and risk maps into a digestible narrative for decision-makers using a range of decision-support tools which include curated spatial data collections, indicator dashboards, infographics and a searchable atlas.

In this workshop session, we will present SARVA 3.0 Beta Portal and demonstrate a number of our new tools including:

• Climate Risk Atlas: a decision support tool that combines spatial information on historical climate data, projections, impacts, and response actions.

• Air Quality Dashboard: interactive visualizations of estimated daily PM2.5 values across South Africa. This method uses weather data and remote sensing data to predict historical air quality.

• SDG Goal 3 (Health) Dashboard: a tool that links open data resources to targets and indicators of human health and well-being in South Africa at the local and district municipality scale.

• Updated Data collections to further support global change research

• The South African Environmental Observation Network is the lead agency and implementer of the South African Risk and Vulnerability Atlas, an initiative of the Department of Science and Innovation. It is currently in its third phase of implementation with this phase focusing on data access and value-added products for decision-making that assist municipalities in managing the risks associated with global change.

For more information visit the SARVA website or email the Team.

For more details on the event, see the schedule page.