MSc Alumna Fatima Mussá wins award at Waternet Symposium
MSc Alumna student Fatima Mussá was acknowledged recently at 14th Waternet Symposium held in Dar-Es-Salaam, Tanzania, which was held from the 29th of October to the 1st of November 2013. Fatima won first prize for her work in the Hydrology category and was also the runner up against all the research papers presented at the symposium, a truly outstanding achievement.
The focus of Fatima's paper was on the study of trends in dry extremes of precipitation and discharge that was conducted in the Crocodile River catchment, a sub-catchment of the Incomati basin located in South Africa.
Fatima's research used different methods to analyze trends on dry extremes of precipitation and discharge. The research outcomes showed no significant trends on the precipitation in dry extremes, however some decreasing trends were found on the discharge in dry extremes. Correlation analyses between discharge, precipitation, temperature and evaporation suggested that the decrease in the discharge is not likely caused by climate change, rather due to the human intervention in the catchment, which includes increases water abstractions in the river and increase in the in the forestry area cultivated in the catchment.
Her efforts were supported by co-authors from both the Riskoman project and UNESCO-IHE that made the representation at such an important regional scientific event possible.
Award winning publication
Mussa,F.; Zhou, Y.; Maskey,S.; Masih,I.; and Uhlenbrook,S. 2013. Trend analysis on dry extremes of precipitation and discharge in the Crocodile river catchment, South Africa