Browsing by Author "Marx, Jan Taljaard"

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    Military integrated environmental management at the Donkergat military-training area
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2014-12) Marx, Jan Taljaard; Van der Merwe, J. H.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Economic & Management Sciences. School of Public Leadership.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Donkergat Military-training Area (DMTA) at Langebaan, South Africa, hosts diverse, primarily seaborne, training and war fighting endeavours of South African Special Forces (SF) soldiers. The facility borders the Atlantic Ocean, Langebaan Lagoon (a Ramsar site) and Meeuw Island. The question arises how to compatibly accommodate military activity in this sensitive environment? The research aimed to build an inventory of environment-operation interaction impacts on the DMTA, document and analyse the efficacy of management procedures in a MIEM (military integrated environmental management) framework and design and test an electronic spatial decision support system (SDSS) to enable replication elsewhere. Hence, five objectives were pursued, namely to inventorise the physical resource base and concomitant environmental sensitivities of DMTA; to inventorise the military activity impacts on the resource base; to overview management measures to reduce further unrestrained progress of environmentally harmful impacts through MIEM solutions; to develop an SDSS to practically manage the sensitive environmental resources and military activities; and to finally project these measures against a theoretical backdrop of integrated military and marine environmental management. A mixed-mode methodology was followed. The surveys culminated in a comprehensive, reference manual-like inventory of terrestrial and marine floral and faunal life forms – reported to species level in the appendices. Similar data on physical and human-made landscape features were compiled and the conservation status and vulnerabilities of life forms, especially birds, were established. The surveys recorded evidence of notable military impact on the environment concerning infrastructure, ecology and cultural-historic heritage. A comprehensive electronic spatial database of all these features was compiled on a GIS platform. As point of departure for effective operational and environmental management, the requirements for a MIEM framework were determined. Operational measures for combating a wide range of impacts, as well as the success of their application were compiled to guide continued and future management. An SDSS running off a GIS platform, was designed, described in detail and tested for a range of operational and environmental management applications. This application required the sensitivity rating of a range of geographical phenomena captured in the DMTA GIS database and the execution of a multicriteria evaluation (MCE) procedure that resulted in an integrative environmental sensitivity map. DMTA is unique and hence it is recommended that it be retained as a specialised military-training facility. It is recommended that the SDSS be refined, exported and adapted for application at other SF and South African National Defence Force (SANDF) military-training areas. Refinement should harness the Internet and related data-capture and communications technologies. By implementing this system as part of the legally prescribed MIEM in the SANDF, the impact of military activities on the environment can be minimised and ‘sacred’ or ‘sacrificed’ areas identified. It is recommended that ecosystem indicator monitoring of features like birds, water quality, sediment quality, benthic macrofauna, surf-zone fish and rocky intertidal macrofauna at DMTA should be intensified to support planning of new developments. DMTA should become the benchmark ecosystem for status comparison in the Saldanha Bay area. It is also recommended that parts of the training area be incorporated in the Ramsar definition for the Langebaan Wetland system.