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Miriam's training and experience as a social scientist is particularly valuable in researching and communicating the social-environment impacts associated with global change.
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The CSIR's Miriam Murambadoro has joined the SARVA project part time to assist Kristy Faccer in adding further momentum to the project's stakeholder engagement programme. The programme seeks to ensure that cutting-edge knowledge generation in risk and vulnerability is in fact useful and is being used by SARVA's key stakeholders, that includes decision- and policy-makers, planners, educators and everyday people.
One of the key things that people often overlook with the Atlas is that it deals with global change and not just climate change. It puts people and demographic, population and other changes front and centre of our understanding of the future. This social-environment interface is where Miriam's training and experience as a social scientist is particularly valuable. Miriam has a Masters degree in Environmental and Geographical Sciences under her belt. Her area of specialisation is Human and Urban Geography which stems from her interests in the social aspects of environmental science and geography.
This (quite unintentional) move towards the integration of social sciences with natural sciences has proved to be of great benefit in her work given the current transdisciplinary approach to research.
"As a social scientists operating in a team of natural scientists, my training has enabled me to contribute a different knowledge type or way of thinking that brings a new perspective to the way we look at the "wicked problems" we are faced with today," Miriam explains.
Miriam says she is delighted to be involved in the SARVA project, which she regards as a useful and relevant tool "that has come at exactly the right time". The challenge that Miriam has to tackle as part of the stakeholder engagement team is to get the different stakeholders trained in the proper use of the Atlas so that they are able to engage with the Atlas in a meaningful way in the face of global change.
"The ultimate aim is to get our stakeholders so proficient in the use of the information contained in the Atlas that they are able to make meaningful decisions about environmental sustainability as well as climate change adaptation and mitigation," Miriam says.
Team members constantly evaluate their workshops and other engagements to determine their impact, asking pertinent questions such as whether their message has reached the target audiences, how the recipients assimilate the new knowledge, and whether they are able to apply this new knowledge to the environmental challenges they are facing. They are constantly looking at new and innovative avenues and tools to assist stakeholders in identifying opportunities for using the Atlas content to assist them in their own specific situations.
To ensure user appropriateness, team members source local case studies to show the target users how they would be able apply the information. At the end of the workshops team members ask the participants to indicate which sections of the Atlas they regarded as important and how/ where they feel they can use Atlas information in their work.
Miriam is also enthusiastic about the Risk and Vulnerability Centres that are going to be established in areas where the majority of local people lack technical expertise, such as at former disadvantaged/ underprivileged universities including the Universities of Fort Hare, Limpopo and KwaZulu-Natal.
One of the objectives of the Centres is to create, synthesise, mobilise, sensitise and assess stakeholders' knowledge and preparedness to risk and vulnerability. The Centres may have to provide municipal officials with basic GIS training to enable them to interpret the SARVA maps. Once they are proficient in that, they need to be shown how to apply the information in the spatial portal of the Atlas to their own situations.
As a researcher in the CSIR's Natural Resources and the Environment division since 2008, Miriam is involved in a number of projects, ranging from stakeholder engagement for the South African Risk and Vulnerability Atlas (SARVA) project, climate change and agriculture in Southern Africa to alternative land use for former mining land in Richards Bay. She was also involved in the development of a framework for applied integrative sustainability thinking (A-IST) and bridging the gap between knowledge users and producers in order to mainstream sustainability science.
Contact Miriam on Tel: +27 11 358 0299 or Email mmurambadoro@csir.co.za
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