Transactions of The Royal Society of South Africa 

About: Transactions of The Royal Society of South Africa is an academic journal published by Taylor & Francis. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Estuary & Bay. It has an ISSN identifier of 0035-919X. Over the lifetime, 1522 publications have been published receiving 17820 citations.

Why We Disagree About Climate Change: Understanding Controversy, Inaction, and Opportunity, Mike Hulme : book review

Abstract: As anyone who engages in an attempt to reason with others about climate change and its implications knows, this is a domain that is rife with righteous certainty, conflict, ignorance and fear. One is quickly cast into one camp or another. Questions cause one to be instantly labelled climate change denialist - or alarmist - while exploration of fact and alternatives reach sudden dead-ends, and one's courage ebbs. And that is what happens in small forums, never mind the wider political sphere. The world in general and South Africa in particular have had a long succession of big fearful ideas about environmental change, each laden with the same kind of altercation - desiccation, desertification (and the invasion of the Karoo), nuclear winter, acid rain - and each with, at best, policy responses that have been only partially successful.

The ecology of south african estuaries

Abstract: St. Lucia Estuary on the Zululand coast, which once had a rich fauna of prawns and fish, has recently deteriorated. An ecological survey has shown that this is due to silting at the mouth and very saline water in the upper lakes. These conditions are traced back to droughts, erosion and man's interference with the filtering action of swamps. The present fauna and flora are described and plans for improving the estuary are discussed.

“Wilding the farm or farming the wild”? The evolution of scientific game ranching in South Africa from the 1960s to the present

Abstract: This article analyses in some detail the scientific developments relating to extensive game ranching for meat production in South Africa from the 1960s onwards. Initially it recalls how game was utilised in South Africa in the nineteenth century and then reflects on the rise of the modern livestock industry and its detrimental effect on the herds of game that survived in the region into the twentieth century. The roles of scientists from different regions—Britain, the United States and South Africa—are identified and their respective scientific contributions to the wildlife industry evaluated. The narrative is situated within the con-text of a rise in environmental consciousness in the mid-twentieth century and the recent challenges that have faced the formal agricultural and pastoral sector in South Africa.

The okavango delta

Abstract: SUMMARY The Okavango Delta is a large, low gradient (ca. 1:3400), alluvial fan situated in a graben structure which is an extension of the East African Rift system. The catchment is situated in sub-tropical central Angola (rainfall ca. 1000 mm/a), and is underlain by Kalahari sand. Okavango River water therefore has a very low dissolved solid content (ca. 40 ppm), and a very low suspended load. The main clastic sediment load consists of eroded Kalahari sand, which is transported as bedload. Base flow in the river sustains about 4000 km2 of permanent swamps in the Panhandle and upper fan. The latter are flanked by seasonal swamps, which become inundated during advance of the seasonal flood wave. This flood wave takes four months to traverse the 250 km length of the fan. The extent of seasonal flooding is variable and can exceed 12 000 km2. The fan is situated in a semiarid region (rainfall 513 mm/a), in which evapotranspiration exceeds rainfall by a factor of three. Only 15% of inflow plus rainfall leaves ...