Assorted REALers accompanied Esther and Colin on their fieldwork trip to the Amboseli region. Two swamps were targeted for analysis, resulting in some beautiful cores and a ton of fun, all under the watchful eye of Mount Kilimanjaro. Further activities included mapping the sediment depth, taking pictures with the trusted Quad “Don’t land me in […]
Workshop on archival sources
From March 24 to 25, 2014, Dr. David Anderson and Dr. Benoit Hazard led a workshop on accessing and critically analysing archival sources and historical research methods at the British Institute in Eastern Africa and the Kenya National Archives. The workshop introduced archival sources and historical research methods to scholars with limited experience in historical research. The workshop […]
Accessing historical air photographs of Kenya
Most of the Colony of Kenya was photographed in the late 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, and used to compile the Kenyan topographic maps (scale 1:50 000; Series Y731). These maps show the locations of the air photographs and a copy of the photos are held by the Rhodes House of the Bodleian Libraries at the […]
ESR 4: Long-term ecosystem dynamics and societal interactions in the Amboseli and Mau ecosystems from swamp sediments
ESR 4 – Esther Githumbi SUPERVISOR – Dr. Rob Marchant INSTITUTION – University of York I am based at The York Institute for Tropical Ecosystems (KITE), University of York. KITE works across Eastern Africa to understand ecosystem patterns and processes, how these interact with environment, biotic and human populations. The region encompasses some […]
ER 1: (Wild?)fire
Marie Curie ITN Experienced Researcher: Dr. Colin Courtney Mustaphi Host Institution: University of York Institute for Tropical Ecosystems (KITE), Environment Department Duration: November 2013 to November 2015 Summary: Fire is an important disturbance in East African ecosystems , influencing community structure and function, species distributions, nutrient processes, and plays a role in global carbon cycle. Humans have […]
Photos from the Baringo conference at the University of Köln
Over January 8-10, 2014, the Global South Studies Center at the University of Cologne hosted a conference and brought together many members of the REAL team and other researchers working in East Africa. The focus was social-ecological transitions, exchange and emergence: resilience and vulnerability in the wider Baringo basin and adjoining highlands. […]
Resilience and vulnerability in the wider Baringo basin
Over January 8-10, 2014, the Global South Studies Center at the University of Cologne hosted a conference and brought together many members of the REAL team and other researchers working in East Africa. The focus was social-ecological transitions, exchange and emergence: resilience and vulnerability in the wider Baringo basin and adjoining highlands. The program is […]
Stockholm GIS workshop, Feb 2014
REAL ESRs participated in the QGIS and R statistical analysis training held 10-14 February at Stockholm University. The QGIS training, organised by the department of Human Geography at Stockholm University included basic GIS exercises, followed by intermediate and advanced GIS analyses involving spatial data analysis, working with terrain data, and accessing public domain geographic data. […]
PAGES Human-Environment Interactions Workshop, Feb. 2014
Towards a more accurate quantification of human-environment interactions in the past. Several REAL members attended the PAGES focus 4 workshop at the University of Leuven, Belgium, between February 3-7, 2014. The focus of the workshop was the quantification of human-environment interactions and how to improve quantification accuracy, especially in large-scale reconstructions of past land use […]
Sieved charcoal analysis of sediments
LAB PROTOCOLS Wet sieved charcoal analysis By: Colin J. Courtney Mustaphi January 22, 2014; November 3, 2020 Sieved charcoal analysis can be performed at various depths down core to examine broad changes in macroscopic charcoal deposition or contiguously subsampled down core at a high resolution to reconstruct fire episodes and to estimate fire return intervals […]
Photos from the Baringo conference at the University of Köln
Over January 8-10, 2014, the Global South Studies Center at the University of Cologne hosted a conference and brought together many members of the REAL team and other researchers working in East Africa. The focus was social-ecological transitions, exchange and emergence: resilience and vulnerability in the wider Baringo basin and adjoining highlands. […]
Esther Githumbi
Position: Post-doctoral Researcher [Google Scholar] Biography: I am a Late Quaternary researcher focussing on landscape changes during the Holocene. My expertise is the use of multiple proxies such as pollen, charcoal, sediment physical and chemical characteristics to develop records of vegetation change, fire history and sediment processes. I have also worked with land-cover reconstruction […]