Carbon exchanges in the Kalahari

  Peter Fleming Award 2008 (Grant of £9000)
Dr Andrew Thomas and Dr Stephen Hoon, Manchester Metropolitan University; and Dr Andrew Dougill, University of Leeds

  The Project
To assess the effect of climate change in the Kalahari on carbon and nitrogen cycling.
The team, drawing on expertise in soil science, environmental instrumentation, ecology and development studies, spent two months conducting field measurements and experiments. See an introduction to the field sites and methods (video).

  Why this is important
Climate change in the Kalahari Desert, an area known for its indigenous peoples, will alter rainfall patterns and increase temperatures. This will affect the already fragile soil, drying it out more and for longer each year. That will have immediate local impacts on vegetation and livelihoods. But the implications are potentially much greater. A drier soil will in turn change its chemistry and the way in which the soil absorbs both nitrogen and carbon from the air and releases it back to the atmosphere. Dry areas, such as the Kalahari, cover a massive 40% of the land surface and so the cumulative effects of these small changes in soils will have profound impacts on the environment not just locally, but also globally. In particular less absorption of carbon will mean that relative more remains bound as greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, worsening climate change.

  Field work has been conducted and data are now being analysed.

  Further information