SASUF Satellite Events 2024

To register please go to https://forms.gle/Z2ZXyCFNbKRh9e3j7
Registration closes on the 1st of May 2024

Heavy metals and organic compounds have been identified in three sites in South Africa. The satellite event aims foster to discussions around multiple remediation techniques that can be used to remediate the sites. This satellite event seeks to be an educational program to enable South African and Swedish researchers and students to collaborate in finding meaningful and lasting solutions not only to the soils and water bodies under such pollution but to also bring relief to the affected communities. Remediation technologies such as phyto/bioremediation are promising approaches. A number of these will be explored during the workshop. These technologies are environmentally friendly and sustainable alternatives to traditional remediation. Utilizing phytoremediation crops as feedstock for biogas production can make an economic environmentally friendly contribution. Condensation irrigation is a system that provides clean and effective subsurface irrigation from solar driven distillation of polluted or saline water. The quality and quantity of the irrigation water produced in a small-scale condensation irrigation plant will be analysed. An innovative approach to use the regularly generated biomass during the processing of macadamia nuts will be added to remediate polluted soils and water tables. Machine learning supervised training and unsupervised testing of the accumulated data will assist in the generation of the model predicting the soil and water remediation challenge even in the case of the unpredicted scenarios.

Registration
To register please go to https://forms.gle/Z2ZXyCFNbKRh9e3j7. Registration closes on the 1st of May 2024

Agenda
The partners will be presenting their different expertise on the topic and the sessions will cover;

• Description of the study areas- Dr A Mbangi
• Heavy metal extraction techniques from metal-rich ash and downstream process of the phytoremediation stage- Prof. A Mulaba and co-researchers at Lulea University Sweden
• Use of microorganisms to degrade organic contaminants and analytical methods for detection- Dr A. Ojo
• The use of biogas in environmental conservation and agriculture- Dr E. Conradie
• Economic implications of pollution on communities around the sites- Dr E. Owusu Sekyere
• Cultivation of horticultural crops under multistress conditions (salinity, heavy metals and organically contaminated water/root media) using eco-organic soilless culture and phytohormone-based biostimulants as novel strategy- Dr ZP Khetsha 
• The will also be an online presentation by Prof. Rathebe, Phoka from the University of Johannesburg.

Venue
The Nordic Africa Institute, Villavagen 6, 752 36 Uppsala, Sweden

Contact details
For more information please email mbangi.awonke@mut.ac.za