Our Projects

Our primary data systems are developed for projects funded by the National Research Foundation (NRF), the Department of Science and Innovation (DSI) and the Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries (DFFE) but there are several additional collaborations and small funding streams – both locally and internationally – served by the team. Coupled with these funded projects are ongoing programmes to describe and publish earth and environmental data sets provided by SAEON and its stakeholders. 

South African Risk and Vulnerability Atlas (SARVA)

SARVA is an initiative of the Department of Science and Innovation and forms a 10-year Global Change Grand Challenge. It is currently in its third phase of implementation with this phase focusing on data access and value-added products for decision-making. Examples of open access data sets include land-use change, urbanisation, climate change, biodiversity loss, social and physical infrastructure, education, child health and poverty indicators.

BioEnergy Atlas

The BioEnergy Atlas is funded by the Department of Science and Innovation and coordinated by SAEON. It covers assessment of biomass potential in South Africa and the feasibility of its application. Aimed at policy makers, national, regional and local governments, and at researchers and the consulting industry, the flexible, collaborative platform and open access licenses will stimulate use of the resource and continued expansion of the knowledge in this domain.

National Climate Change Information System (NCCIS)

In partnership with the Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries (DFFE), SAEON is developing a series of decision-support tools for climate change adaptation, monitoring and reporting. The NCCIS is part of the national effort to track South Africa's overall transition to a low carbon and climate resilient economy by offering a series of decision support tools to inform policy and decision-making.

Marine Information Management System (MIMS)

The Marine Information Management System (MIMS) is an open repository that archives and publishes collections and subsets of marine related datasets for the Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries: Oceans and Coastal Research (DFFE:OCR), South Africa. MIMS is tasked with the long-term preservation of South Africa’s ocean and coastal data. MIMS is a component of the National Oceans and Coasts Information Management System (OCIMS) and manages the Southern African Data Centre for Oceanography (SADCO).

SEACRIFOG Inventory Tool

The SEACRIFOG Collaborative Inventory Tool serves to systematically capture information on relevant variables, observation infrastructures, existing data products and methodological protocols.

South African Carbon Sinks Atlas

The Carbon Sinks Atlas is a data and information tool aimed at providing spatial distribution of carbon stocks and fluxes across South Africa. Data from the 2019 National Terrestrial Carbon Sinks Assessment are available for download directly or through the QGIS plugin.