CSIR Natural Resources And The Environment

Invasion by alien plants poses a significant threat to South Africa’s biodiversity and human well-being. Ecosystem services are under pressure largely due to this threat. The Department of Environmental Affairs is tasked with bringing the invasion threat under control and its WfW programme is tac...

CSIR researchers are converting fly ash, a by-product of the South African pulp and paper industry, into heat-resistant geo-polymers that can be used in the protection of metal surfaces against high temperatures in furnaces or kilns. Fly ash disposal presents major environmental and financial pro...

The mining industry is one of the main drivers of the South African economy. Traditional drill-and-blast mining, practiced particularly in the South African platinum and gold mines, is both expensive and fairly dangerous in terms of the limited understanding of the rock mass response to deformati...

CSIR researchers combined two sets of land-cover data to create the first high-resolution, locally calibrated national map of woody cover for South Africa. Researchers used satellite-based Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) mapping with existing Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) datasets, derived f...

Researchers in South Africa and their counterparts in Argentina are studying the links between human-induced pollution, the interaction of river streams and landscapes, and specific groups of organisms in sandy rivers. The research will fill the gap of knowledge pertaining to sandy bedforms like ...

The CSIR has developed a 10-step process to assess and reduce the risks of wildland fires and map the likelihood of fire. The 10 steps entail the delineation of the wildlife-urban interface, where a 100 m buffer is created on either side to allow for the characterisation of assets and fuel types....

CSIR researchers have been continuously monitoring and studying the effect of wastewater discharge on the marine environment in Durban. The monitoring programme has generated a wealth of information that has contributed to the understanding of how wastewater discharge affects the sea environment ...

Mill sludge, a by-product of the pulp and paper industry, is traditionally landfilled, incinerated or land spread. However, these options are associated with many environmental and economic impacts that include: emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and the leaching of toxic substances...

A ground-breaking study by the CSIR and the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) will see the irradiation pre-treatment of dissolving wood pulp reduce the amount of chemical reagents used in the viscose production process, saving the textile and fibre industries time and money. Dissolving wood pulp...

The project seeks to find a suitable technique, or a combination of techniques, to measure the different compounds found in diesel engine emissions. These techniques will be tested for feasibility, accuracy and robustness under controlled conditions and under real-mining conditions. Ultimately, r...