African landscapes are systematically underrepresented in global collections of scientific information and decision-making tools. This bias in ‘formalised’ knowledge undermines assessments of the opportunities from, and threats to, the ecosystem services these landscapes provide, and hinders effective decision-making about sustainable uses. OPALS is helping to address this problem by collecting new data, collaborating to increase the availability and accessibility of data, and embedding an ethos of open research at the heart of every activity to maximise wider societal value and benefit. The resulting data-led insights are then used to enhance models that inform decision making systems.
Example Activities
Oppenheimer-Turvill Doctoral Scholar Enimhien Akhabue is focusing on (i) assessing the information needs of decision-makers in African contexts regarding the resilience of landscape function under climate change, (ii) improving the representation of African landscapes in land surface models, and (iii) the perspectives of African researchers within these modelling frameworks. These models are used to understand global ecosystems, including the balance of processes that sustain life on Earth, for example, by the Exeter-led Global Carbon Budget and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The aim is to inform policies that enhance adaptation to, and, where appropriate, mitigation of, climate change in Africa.
Few and Far Doctoral Scholar Chafika Phiri is working in partnership with the Baobab Foundation to research how the multitude of ecosystem services that baobab trees (Adansonia digitata) provide for people in African landscapes might be better safeguarded for future generations. Chafika is using community-contributed observations, remote sensing, and machine learning to map baobab trees and use this knowledge about their distribution and health to better inform sustainable utilisation. Chafika coordinates the Baobabs in Africa Mapped (BAM) Project.
OPALS is supporting research to understand how African savannas respond to drought, fire and climate change. These important ecosystems remain poorly represented in research, limiting our ability to understand how their plants cope with change and how they can best be conserved and restored. The project will examine how savanna plants respond to drought and fire, combining existing knowledge with new field observations in Zambia. It will also strengthen local research capacity and make the data openly available to support future research. The work is led by PhD researcher Juan Pablo Benavides Tocarruncho, through a collaboration between the University of Exeter, the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, Copperbelt University and Mwekera Forestry College in Zambia.
Oppenheimer Programme in African Landscape Systems (OPALS) 