During 2017 UPGro Gro for GooD researcher, Prof John Gathenya, from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) in Nairobi (Kenya) was appointed Senior Fellow at the School of Civil and Environmental engineering of the Technical University (TU) Dresden.
Prof. Gathenya visited TU Dresden from 15-29 May and 29 October-11 November 2017. In the first visit, he was in a team of staff and PhD students from hisdepartment. He presented a case study on Sasumua Payments for ecosystem services project at the International Dresden Water, Soil and Waste Nexus Conference organized by UNU-FLORES and was also a panelist in one of the forums in the conference. At the Institute of Soil Science and Site Ecology, Prof. Gathenya did presented in seminars and held meetings to advise PhD students.
During the second visit he participated in Centre for International Postgraduate Studies of Environmental Management – CIPSEM 72nd Soil & Land Resources International Course. He presented on Payments for Ecosystem services as a tool to catalyze adoption of sustainable land management. He had meetings with some professors and university administration such Vice Rector for research and chair hydrosciences department.
Currently the institute of Soil Science and Site Ecology and his department area involved in a project on assessment of sediment deposits in reservoirs using multi-frequency echo-sounding techniques and some staff and PhD students are engaged and we hope to grow our collaboration by writing proposals to German and EU funding agencies. The Institute of Soil Science and Site Ecology has good experience setting and equipping field research sites for studies in soil and water management and Prof. Gathenya hopes to draw on this expertise in future especially in connection with our engagement with the Kenyan Upper Tana Water Fund Project.
UPGro - African Groundwater 2020 