Dr Anna Shoemaker, ARCC post-doc has just spent the last month touring around western Serengeti visiting heritage sites in collaboration with local partners in an effort to document and understand the historical ecology of this incredibly varied landscape. The range of sites encountered was vast and included German colonial communication posts, hand-dug 19th/20th century wells, […]
Vegetation surveys in Serengeti
The ARCC project has been ramping it’s archaeological activity in western Serengeti this past month, doing participatory mapping and surveys throughout the region. The ARCC project’s archaeologist post-doc Anna Shoemaker was thrilled to be joined in the field from November 6-11 by Professor Tamera Minnick and Richard Alward, both of whom are currently visiting scholars at […]
Participatory Scenario Planning Workshop in Ifakara
The Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT) is a 20 year agricultural commercialisation initiative launched by the World Economic Forum in 2010, with the ultimate goal of enhancing agricultural productivity, food security, poverty reduction and environmental sustainability. The corridor runs through Tanzania’s Kilombero district, an incredibly fertile and biodiverse area with a future that […]
The KESHO framework
Researchers are challenged with exploring and understanding the future of social-ecological systems while addressing their inherent uncertainty. Consequently, scenarios are widely used to explore consistent and realistic narratives of possible future land cover/use patterns, to disseminate co-produced land cover/use change information, to inform policy, and enact positive change. The ARCC project incorporates the KESHO framework […]
POLLEN PROCESSING USING HF DIGESTION
SEDIMENT DESCRIPTION Sediment colour is described using the Munsell soil colour charts as the core is extruded. Colour and the point of any colour change are noted in the core log book which also holds the routine sediment analysis data. Troels-Smith description of the sediment may also be needed, in which case the project leader […]
CHIESA Vegetation from space and from the ground Workshop
Between the 17th to 22nd March 2014, several members of the REAL group (Aynalem, Chris, Christine and Esther) participated in the Vegetation from space and from the ground workshop (KITE-CHIESA). This workshop was facilitated by Dr. Phil Platts and Dr. Marion Pfeifer. The course provided an introduction to the use of Earth Observation (EO) products in the […]
Sieved charcoal analysis of sediments
LAB PROTOCOLS Wet sieved charcoal analysis By: Colin J. Courtney Mustaphi January 22, 2014; November 3, 2020 Sieved charcoal analysis can be performed at various depths down core to examine broad changes in macroscopic charcoal deposition or contiguously subsampled down core at a high resolution to reconstruct fire episodes and to estimate fire return intervals […]