Dr Alanna Rebelo's intern, Ms Mpho Maketa, presents her results on landslides at the South African Wetlands Indaba 2025, which took place from 21-23 October 2025 in Muldersdrift.

Title: "Mapping landslides in the Cape Floristic Region using change detection methods: implications for wetlands"

Find out more: https://nationalwetlandsindaba.org 

Members of the SWS-Africa committee meet at the South African National Wetlands Indaba 2025 🍃 From left to right: Prof Peter Chatanga (Lesotho), Dr Alanna Rebelo (South Africa), Jacolette Adam (South Africa), Dr Dingha Babila (Cameroon), and Willem Lubbe (South Africa). This is the first time members of our committee has ever met in person! Dr Excellence Akeredolu (Nigeria) and Prof Bismark-Dwumfour-Asare (Ghana) were not able to attend.

Alanna Rebelo attended the ERIP First Annual Conference in Siem Reap, Cambodia from 1-4 September 2025. The Ecosystem Restoration Integrated Program (ERIP) is a multi-country, multi-partner effort supported by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) to accelerate ecosystem restoration through inclusive, locally grounded, and technically robust approaches through the GEF8 Project. Over four days, participants will engage in interactive sessions—including country presentations, knowledge co-labs, technical clinics, and a field visit to restoration sites within Phnom Kulen National Park. Read more about the ERIP here, and the press release for the conference here. 

The EO AFRICA R&D Facility, in coordination with the European Space Agency (ESA) and the African Union Commission (AUC), launched in Apr 2025 a 4th call for proposals. Aim: extend the support to African-European collaborative research efforts in the domain of EO applications. Theme: leveraging cutting-edge cloud-based data access and computing infrastructure to tackle water and food security challenges in Africa. Project title: Space-based impact assessment of invasive alien trees on evapotranspiration and water security in southern Africa (SATWAT). PI's: Dr Alanna Rebelo (South Africa) and Dr Elisa Van Cleemput (Netherlands). Read more here. 

In an ambitious effort to better understand and manage invasive alien plants in South Africa’s ecologically diverse Cape Floristic Region, researchers led by Dr Alanna Rebelo at the Agricultural Research Council have released an Invasive Alien Tree Classification Map for the region. This map, created as part of the NASA BioSCape Project, represents a landmark achievement in environmental mapping using advanced machine learning and freely available satellite technology. Press release available here. 

Stellenbosch University honours student, Mpho Maketa, won the coveted "best student presentation" award at the National Wetlands Indaba this October. 

The National Wetlands Indaba 2024 (NWI24) was hosted from 21-25 October 2024 in Cape St. Francis, in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. Mpho Maketa presented in Session 4b: "Wetland biodiversity, functioning and conservation" chaired by Zikhona Ngqula. Her talk was titled: "Investigating the impact of the September 2023 floods on palmiet wetlands in the Cape Floristic Region, South Africa". In this talk, she demonstrated how remote sensing analysis using freely available imagery like Sentinel-2 can be used to monitor wetland health. She found that palmiet wetlands that had decreased resilience were worse affected by the 2023 flood events. Read more here: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/U89Zcnww5pQrB9cK/ 

Dr Alanna Rebelo presented the GEF8 Peatlands Project on 23 October 2024 at the National Wetlands Indaba, Cape St. Francis, Eastern Cape, South Africa

Titled: "A transdisciplinary approach towards restoring selected South African peatland ecosystems and their catchments", this GEF8 project is an ambitious 5-year GEF-funded implementation project which aims to start in 2025. This project is a collaboration between the ARC, WETREST and DFFE, represented by Drs Alanna Rebelo, Jason Le Roux, Lulu Van Rooyen and Althea Grundling, pictured here from left to right. 

Dr Alanna Rebelo attended the NASA-funded BioSCape & ORNL DAAC Data Skills Workshop from 9-11 October 2024: Cape Town, South Africa

The BioSCape Data Skills Workshop was a fantastic experience covering topics such as: BioSCape Airborne and Field Data in the Cloud (Day 1), Remote Sensing for Biodiversity Applications (Day 2) and Mapping Plant Functional Traits (Day 3) presented by: Michele Thornton and Rupesh Shrestha (ORNL DAAC), Erin Hestir (UC Merced), Glenn Moncrieff (TNC), Jasper Slingsby (UCT / U Buffalo), Phil Townsend and Henry Frye (U Wisconsin) and Anabelle Cardoso (UCT / U Buffalo). 

The Society for Wetland Scientists Africa Region (SWS-Africa) Wetlands Training Course Kicked off in Lagos, Nigeria on 7 October 2024

The SWS-Africa 3-day wetlands training course titled: "Introduction to wetlands and the assessment of their ecological condition and ecosystem services" ran from 7-9 October 2024, at the University of Lagos, Nigeria (https://sites.google.com/view/sws-africa/training-event-nigeria-2024). Over 30 people registered and paid to attend, including Nigerian, Ghanaian and Cameroonian nationals. The course was designed to equip participants with practical and theoretical wetland skills. Dr Alanna Rebelo is Chair of this Region, and raised the funds for and helped organise this event. 

PhD student Liam Cogill awarded the best student poster prize at the South African Hydrology (SAHS) Conference in October 2024

The South African Hydrological Society hosted its second hydrology conference from 2–4 October 2024 at Protea Breakwater Lodge, Cape Town (https://southafricanhydrologicalsociety.org.za/). The theme of the conference was: The Future of Hydrology and Water Security. Dr Alanna Rebelo chaired the Scientific Committee, resulting in a scientific programme including four keynote talks, 42 long talks, nine short talks, 15 posters and four workshop sessions. 

Both Dr Alanna Rebelo and Mr Liam Cogill presented, Alanna a long talk, and Liam a poster. Alanna's talk was titled: "Hydrological model structural uncertainty influences predictions of nature-based solution benefits", and Liam's poster: "Can satellite remote sensing be used to measure the water-use impacts of woody invasive alien trees in Southern Africa?". 

Masters student Thandeka Skosana selected to attend the SAEON Graduate Student Network Conference in September 2024

Thandeka Skosana was selected to attend the South African Environmental Observation Network (SAEON) Graduate Student Network (GSN) Conference from 16-20 September 2024, hosted at the SAEON Elwande node in Gqeberha, Eastern Cape, South Africa. The conference was fully funded, with sponsorship including accommodation, transportation and meals. Thandeka found the conference to be insightful and rewarding. A wide range of research topics were presented, including marine studies, atmospheric science, hydrology, climate change and biological invasions. She particularly appreciated the panel discussions that focused on the importance of communicating science effectively to stakeholders and communities, ensuring that research has a meaningful and practical impact.

Honours student Mpho Maketa wins Western Cape Wetlands Forum (WCWF) Student Sponsorship to attend the National Wetland Indaba (NWI) in Oct 2024

The WCWF Student Day is a signature annual event aimed at providing a platform for students registered at tertiary institutions in the Western Cape or conducting research in the province to present their wetland-related research to the professionals and citizen scientists. As part of this initiative, WCWF offer full sponsorship for two students to attend the annual National Wetlands Indaba (NWI). This sponsorship, which includes registration, travel, and accommodation, aligns with the Forum’s goal of fostering student integration into the broader wetland community by offering valuable opportunities for engagement and professional development.

Our team visits UC Boulder for a BioSCape Research Visit

Alanna Rebelo and Nicholas Coertze of the South African BioSCape Project Team working on the "Impacts of Invasive Alien Species on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning" Project have traveled to UC Boulder for a 2 week research visit from 16-27 September 2024. The aim is to work collaboratively on analyses and papers. The host group is the Dee Lab: https://www.colorado.edu/ebio/laura-dee. The sponsor is Ben Poulter from NASA: https://science.gsfc.nasa.gov/sed/bio/benjamin.poulter. A huge thank you to Ben for making this possible!

Read more about our exciting project here: https://sites.google.com/view/alanna-rebelo/bioscape 

Our research cited in The Washington Post!

"The findings jibe with independent research conducted by Alanna J. Rebelo, a senior researcher in the water science unit at South Africa’s Agricultural Research Council, and other scientists. Their paper found that clearing mature infestations of alien trees, such as pines, from areas that would otherwise be treeless increased available water by 15 to 30 percent." 

Read more here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/02/27/south-africa-water-climate-trees/ 

Hilton, 7 February 2024 - The MapWAPS Project, a trailblazing initiative dedicated to mapping invasive alien trees in critical strategic water source areas, proudly announces the release of invasive alien tree maps for four key catchments in South Africa. This significant milestone comes on the heels of the successful completion of fieldwork campaigns and stakeholder engagements in the designated study catchments.

To read the full story, follow this link. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mVKZDLCr76ohrWie4iLVRTlHKk3VA9U5/view?usp=sharing