Spatio-temporal variation of the land surface parameters in Temperature, in King Williams Town, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa
- Authors: Willie, Yanga Adrian
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Environmental sciences
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MSc
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10353/12106 , vital:39152
- Description: The world is currently experiencing unprecedented urban growth. The influx of people into urban areas from rural areas is motivated by both economic and social factors such as increased employment opportunities. The latter is a result of, in part, industrialization, and the perceived higher standard of living that is often associated with access to better infrastructure. Surface Heat Island (SHI) is a phenomenon whereby urban areas experience higher surface temperatures than the surrounding rural areas. The presence of the SHI in urban areas has a negative impact not only on city dwellers, but also on the environment and the economy. The development of SHI is often associated with patterns of land use and land cover in urban areas. Numerous methods exist that can be used to study SHI’s. Literature suggests that Land Surface Temperature (LST), derived from satellite imagery, is a proven method that produces reliable results. The aim of this study was to evaluate the SHI in King Williams Town by studying the relationship between land surface temperatures, land cover and land cover indices. The derived indices are the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Normalized Difference Built up Index (NDBI). These indices were selected because they are representative of the land cover scheme used in the research study. This study was conducted in the King Williams town area between the years 1995 and 2018 the land surface temperature was derived from Landsat ETM + high thermal band data. The findings from this study provide an idea on the correlation between satellite derived land surface temperature and the land modification which occurred during the urbanization of King Williams Town during a 23 year period between1995 and 2018. The built up land category was the most influential in the development of high land surface temperature levels , vegetation had an opposite effect as a series of data sets illustrated that vegetated areas had a iv cooling effect on the surface. Water bodies in the study area had an insignificant effect on the Surface temperature levels while the grass lands weren’t as cooling as the vegetation but provided a cooling environment in the study area .The spatial distribution of areas of high surface temperature (hot spots) was discovered to be concentrated in the urban areas of the study area which is in the northwest region of the study area and correlates to the land cover and land cover indices associated with built up and artificial surfaces. The cooler areas or patches of land with lower values of land surface temperature were distributed on the outskirts of the study area away from the CBD and residential areas. This was the case because of the high concentration of vegetation and thicker grass lands in those regions.
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- Date Issued: 2020
Environmental literacy: a needs analysis
- Authors: Lillah, Riyaadh
- Date: 2011
- Subjects: Environmental education , Environmental sciences , Human ecology
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MCom
- Identifier: vital:9290 , http://hdl.handle.net/10948/d1011029 , Environmental education , Environmental sciences , Human ecology
- Description: An impending environmental crisis has been predicted by many which has led to an increased awareness and concern regarding the ability of the planet to sustain human development. Furthermore, organisations expected to be leaders in society, such as businesses and Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), have been identified as some of the main drivers behind the ever increasing rate of destruction of the natural environment. Business schools have even been singled out as some of the main drivers behind the degradation of the natural environment by not addressing the knowledge gap of managers in this regard. Given this, the problem statement of this research is to determine how effective existing NMMU curricula are at shaping environmentally literate business graduates. The problem will be investigated from two perspectives. Firstly, from a supply side perspective - investigating the pro-environmental behaviours, ecological and business knowledge, „green‟ management skills and environmental values that students registered in the Business and Economics Sciences faculty at NMMU exhibit. Secondly, the problem will be investigated from a demand side perspective – investigating the pro-environmental behaviours, ecological and business knowledge, "green‟ management skills and environmental values that potential employers of NMMU students require. The focus will be on prospective employers in the mining and automotive industries. To address the problem to be investigated in this study a theoretical framework was developed and tested. This theoretical framework was based on the assumption that environmental literacy is measurable in terms of the behaviours of individuals towards the natural environment and that these behaviours are in turn dependent upon the ecological and business knowledge, "green‟ management skills and environmental values that the individual possesses. To test the theoretical framework an online survey was conducted amongst students registered in the Business and Economic Sciences Faculty at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU), while semi-structured personal interviews were used to assess the demand for environmentally literate business graduates in the mining and automotive industries. In total 308 business students participated in the online survey. The findings suggest that students are highly sensitive to moral issues pertaining to the natural environment and have a better understanding of traditional ecological concepts than "green‟ business concepts. It was also found that ecological and business knowledge had the greatest influence on pro-environmental behaviours followed by environmental values and "green‟ management skills. The findings of this study will be used to enhance environmental literacy in the faculty. In terms of the semi-structured personal interviews, the views of eight environmental experts in the South African mining industries were obtained. The general analytical procedure was applied to identify prominent themes which existed in the qualitative data. This involved developing codes and identifying data which related to those specific codes in order to provide a description of and provide some dimension to these codes. Codes were categorised according to their similarity to each other. The different categories identified were ecology, legal compliance, technology, environmental management, sustainable development, pollution and waste management, financial implications and corporate citizenship. Some of these themes were not entirely expected based on the literature review. These additional insights add depth to the analysis of environmental education in South Africa and highlight the gaps in environmental literacy literature. In terms of environmental literacy, these categories had implications for the knowledge, skills, values and behaviours of business graduates. From the findings of this study the researcher concluded that a certain level of enthusiasm for environmental education exists among NMMU students, as well as individuals in the mining and automotive industries in South Africa. However, the level of environmental literacy exhibited by students registered in the Business and Economic Sciences Faculty at NMMU (between nominal and functional) was not considered to be sufficient to operate effectively in the mining and automotive industries.
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- Date Issued: 2011