3. CURRENT RESEARCH PLAN, MONITORING AND DATA
Water is considered one of South Africa’s potentially key limiting factors for economic development. Falling within a strategic water source, the Cathedral Peak Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) platform is unique in that it is the only high-altitude hydroclimatic monitoring site in the southern African region. Thus, addressing the need for quality, long-term datasets and process level understanding in sensitive high-altitude areas, which are needed to improve the understanding of global change impacts on the ecosystem to ensure water security and provision to lower lying areas.
The hydro-climatological monitoring network was designed to be comparable with the historical network to benefit from the historic data for environmental change research as well as being relevant for monitoring changes and thresholds or tipping points in system behaviour into the future. Comparison studies between historical and current monitoring equipment have been undertaken (Gray and Toucher, 2019). More intensive monitoring is undertaken in Catchment VI, a near ‘pristine’ grassland catchment which is considered as the core, benchmark catchment as well as in Catchment III which is degraded and fire-protected Catchment IX which has become encroached with woody species.