The Council for Geoscience has recently been awarded a project, funded by the Department of Science and Technology, to create a South African Geological Hazards Observation System. The project aims to create an inventory and database of known geological hazards affecting South Africa. Together with this database, a significant portion will focus on developing techniques for the assessment of geological hazards using remote sensing data.

Background:

Geological hazards are naturally occurring or human induced conditions or phenomena that present a risk or are a potential danger to life and infrastructure. Potential geological hazards facing South Africa include coastal and beach erosion, terrestrial erosion ,deformation due to mining activities and water abstraction, geochemical hazards (natural or anthropogenic), landslides, problem soils (including shrink/swell clays and acidic soils), seismic activity, sinkholes, tsunamis and groundwater related hazards.

The rationale for studying geohazards centres on developing decision-support or risk-management systems aimed at assessing the impact of geohazards to inform policymakers in terms of prevention, mitigation and adaptation. The impacts of geological hazards are frequently severe with little reaction time. How we respond to a geological hazard occurrence will depend on our ability to understand and predict potential hazardous events using appropriate technologies.

Project aims:

The core of risk management consists of identifying, understanding and mitigating risk by reducing the probability or consequences of hazards. This can be achieved by firstly identifying potential hazards and the areas that will be affected, and secondly, by achieving a greater understanding of the mechanisms of the hazard in question.

The project aims to identify potential geological hazards affecting South Africa as well as those areas with a high probability of being affected by geological hazards. Following the identification of potentially affected areas, a greater understanding of the hazard in question will be achieved by designing and testing remote sensing techniques and methodologies to study the geological hazards in question. This will include the development of monitoring approaches, the search for precursors to events and in cases, developing techniques to achieve a better understanding of the mechanisms of the hazard in question.

The resulting information will be provided in web-based GIS format, which is currently under construction.

DST Space Science and Technology

The SAGHOS initiative is sponsored by the Department of Science and Technology and is managed by the Council for Geoscience. Participation from research institutions and industry participants is expected.