Smart Places

The CSIR coastal flood risk viewer is an interactive web-based tool to visualise the extent of coastal flooding in specific areas. This information is relevant for coastal development planning and disaster management in the light of climate change projections which indicate that sea levels will r...

South Africa is among the driest countries in the world, with an average annual rainfall of approximately 490 mm, of which only approximately 10% end up in the country’s rivers. The limitations on our water resources are well known and initiatives aimed at protecting water resources date back to ...

The Spatial and Temporal Evidence for Planning in South Africa (stepSA) initiative has its origin in research and development collaboration between the CSIR, the Department of Science and Technology and the Human Science Research Council, which started in 2008 to identify regional interactions be...

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...

The CSIR has successfully implemented an algae-based wastewater treatment solution at the Motetema wastewater treatment works in the Sekhukhune District Municipality in Limpopo to facilitate the effective and efficient removal of nutrients and pathogens in wastewater treatment works. Wastewater t...

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 ...