Electronic Theses and Dissertations (Masters)

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Browsing Electronic Theses and Dissertations (Masters) by Keyword "Climate Change"

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    Exploring Spatio-Temporal Climate Dynamics over Central Southern Africa: A Cross Border Analysis
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-07) Welff, Megan; Fitchett, Jennifer; Esterhuysen, Amanda
    Understanding the diverse nature of climate dynamics in southern Africa is imperative in the face of climate change. Ground-based meteorological stations provide high-resolution climate data that can be used to investigate and analyse climate in detail. However, southern African countries monitor and manage meteorological stations independently which presents various challenges when attempting cross-border studies. While there are many meteorological-station-based climate studies conducted for South Africa or Botswana, there are few that combine meteorological datasets from both these countries to investigate climate dynamics across political boundaries. In this study, meteorological data from Botswana Meteorological Services and the South African Weather Service spanning 1912-2019 is pre-processed, cleaned and combined to produce a cross-border dataset. A total of 44 stations covers the Gauteng and North West provinces in South Africa and the southern, Kweneng, Kgatleng, South-east and Kgalagadi districts of Botswana. The combined cross-border dataset includes the average monthly summer, winter and annual rainfall (RS, RW and RA respectively) and the average monthly minimum and maximum summer, winter and annual temperatures (TSmin, TSmax, TWmin, TWmax, TAmin and TAmax respectively). From the linear regression analysis, an overall increasing trend for temperature is identified barring two stations (TSmin and TAmin for Mahalapye Met station, and TWmin for Vaalharts). Additionally, for rainfall there is a significant decreasing trend identified. Lastly, the spatial variability of the region is determined using an Inverse Distance Weighted interpolation in the GIS Software, ArcMap, to interpolate between stations. From this a west to east reduction in rainfall and a north-western to south-eastern decreasing temperature gradient is identified across the study region.
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    The holiday climate index: applicability and suitability for the South African context
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Kristensen, Daniella; Fitchett, Jennifer
    Tourism is one of the largest economic sectors and continues to grow at a rapid pace. This sector is under threat by climate change, with Africa deemed to be most vulnerable to these changes. The projected climatic changes and increase in occurrence and intensity of extreme events over South Africa has an impact on overall tourism comfortability. Quantifying the climatic suitability of tourist destinations has been achieved through tourism climate indices. Some of these indices cover all tourism activities and some are specific to a tourism type (e.g., snow tourism). The Holiday Climate Index (HCI) was developed to determine climactic comfortability of beach and urban destinations and to address the limitations of previous indices. This study will provide the first determination of the appropriateness of the HCI for the South African context and calculations of the HCI for destinations across South Africa. The mean annual HCIurban and HCIbeach scores for the longest continuous period of each destination reveal that the majority of destinations demonstrate HCIurban and HCIbeach scores between 70 and 79 and are considered to have ‘very good’ climatic conditions for tourism. An exception is the HCIurban result for Durban which is scored as ‘good’. Generally, the highest HCI scores were calculated for Cape Town on the west coast, while the lowest HCI scores were calculated for Durban on the east coast. It was determined that McBoyle’s (2001) winter season peak distribution is applicable to seven of the 13 HCIurban and three of the five HCIbeach destinations. This indicates that the winter season is most suitable for tourism for most destinations. In comparing the results of destinations where both the HCIurban and HCIbeach are applicable, it was determined that all destinations, with the exception of Durban, have a minimal difference in the average annual HCI scores. Durban recorded a notable difference which demonstrated that the destination would be more suitable for beach tourism. The results of this study can be used to quantify the impacts of climate change on the tourism sector and assist tourism stakeholders in developing the capacity to adapt to the projected changes.