The SASSCAL Book
The SASSCAL Book, a culmination of six years of SASSCAL funded research, was launched at the SASSCAL Symposium in Lusaka in April 2018. The book is entitled “Climate change and adaptive land management in southern Africa – assessments, changes, challenges, and solutions”, edited by Revermann, R., Krewenka, K.M., Schmiedel, U., Olwoch, J.M., Helmschrot, J. & Jürgens, N. and published in the book series Biodiversity & Ecology, Vol. 6, Klaus Hess Publishers, Göttingen & Windhoek.
The front and back cover of the SASSCAL Book. The thematic chapters are clearly guided by colour coding.
This book showcases research results obtained during the SASSCAL research portfolio 1.0 throughout the years 2012 to 2018. It offers assessments of the values and resources of the region, gives information on direction and intensity of environmental changes and the risks and challenges involved. It proposes pathways towards improved management tools and instruments for climate change adaptation and sustainable land management in southern Africa.
Some 217 researchers contributed to the SASSCAL Book and it covers a diverse range of topics related to climate change research and adaptive land management.
The volume proudly boasts 497 pages and is divided into eight thematic chapters: Climate, Water resources, Risk management, Rangelands, Food security, Forest resources, Land cover dynamics, and Biodiversity.
The first article of each chapter introduces the topic of the chapter and gives an overview of recent findings in the respective areas and defines common concepts. The subsequent articles present original research findings of the SASSCAL tasks. Info boxes add to that by providing summaries of certain aspects or by presenting newly developed (software) tools or databases, amongst others.
A colour guiding scheme enables quick access to the thematic areas covered in the book and a map provides a “geographical table of content”.
We hope to present a book that offers scientific information for a wide audience and that is also useful for interested stakeholders and scientists from other disciplines alike.
As such, the articles do not focus on details of the applied methodology, but instead concentrate on the relevant outcomes. However, references to more detailed descriptions of how the studies were done or how the data were analysed are provided. In order to assure high scientific quality, all articles underwent a peer review process where all articles were checked by two experts in the field. This iterative process clearly improved both the clarity and quality of the submitted papers.
The Book was officially launched on 18 April 2018, during the SASSCAL Science Symposium in Lusaka, Zambia. The launch was presented by Dr Jane Olwoch, the SASSCAL Executive Director and Dr Rasmus Revermann, the editor in chief of the publication from the University of Hamburg.
During the launch ceremony, a copy of the Book was presented to every SASSCAL Board Member and every SASSCAL Coordinator. In addition, the audience had the opportunity to win first copies of the book during a fun quiz.
The book was published by Klaus Hess Publishers based in Göttingen and Windhoek. At the same time it was included in the book series Biodiversity & Ecology to ensure high visibility. For easy reference, each article carries a digital object identifier (doi).
The book is available in book stores:
The SASSCAL Book
ISBN Namibia 978-99916-57-43-1
ISBN Germany 978-3-933117-95-3
All SASSCAL institutions receive free hard copies of the book to make them available in their libraries.
The entire book is available online and open access and can be downloaded from
the SASSCAL Data and Information Portal
or
the home page of Biodiversity & Ecology:
http://www.biodiversity-plants.de/biodivers_ecol/vol6.php
We would like to thank all authors, reviewers and SASSCAL staff who contributed to the huge of effort of creating the book over the past year and we wish an interesting read.
