Congo

• Thousands of meters below, a smaller plane would be threading through the storm downdrafts measuring the rain.
• The project I was part of, neatly named Rain (Rain Augmentation in Nelspruit), was a cloud seeding experiment several years in the making.
• Cloud seeding involves adding tiny particles into a cloud in order to give moisture something to attach to and form droplets.
• There is no identical cloud with which to compare the outcome of having seeded a particular cloud.

A perfect storm

• Parts of the Arabian Peninsula received 18 months of rainfall in 24 hours that Tuesday.
• Being the weather-man in the chat group, I looked at the satellite and the forecast model data.
• What I saw were the ingredients of a perfect storm.
• Under these conditions, thunderstorms develop very readily and in this case a special kind of storm, a mesoscale convective system, built and sustained itself for many hours.

Cloud seeding not to blame

• What surprised me, though, was not the majesty of nature, but an emerging set of reports blaming the ensuing rains on cloud seeding.
• It turns out the UAE has been running a cloud seeding project, UAE Research Program for Rain Enhancement Science, for several years.
• The idea, similar to the Rain project I once worked on, is to promote the growth of cloud droplets and thereby rainfall.

Richard Washington receives funding from the Natural Environment Research Council to study climate processes.

• Research suggests it may have originated in South America because it has natural enemies there which have co-evolved with the plant.
• However, fossil records and ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics depicting water lettuce indicate that it may have been present in other regions for millions of years.
• Recently, water lettuce has invaded one of South Africa’s most important rivers, the Vaal River, on the border of the Gauteng and Free State provinces.
• My team and I are currently working with Rand Water on an integrated management plan for water lettuce control in the Vaal River.

The damage

• This can reduce light penetration and oxygen levels in the water, negatively affecting all aspects of aquatic life from microscopic plankton to large fish.
• The mats can also impede water flow, leading to stagnation and increased mosquito breeding sites.
• They can also damage other vegetation.

The weevil

• This Brazilian weevil species was first introduced to Africa in 1985 via Australia, following successful control of water lettuce infestations there.
• Since then, it has been used to control water lettuce infestations in Botswana, Benin, Ghana, Senegal, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Republic of Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Nigeria, Togo, Mozambique and Morocco.
• Invasions at sites in these countries, no matter how extensive, were generally brought under control within a year.

The Vaal River

• However, at the end of 2023, a large infestation was noticed on the Vaal River and was reported to relevant authorities.
• Since then, the infestation has covered up to 40km of the river in the Vaal Barrage area, around the town of Vanderbijlpark, and threatens to spread downstream of the 1,200km long Vaal River.
• Thousands of weevils have already been released into the Vaal River since November 2023 from our mass rearing facility in Makhanda.
• What lurks alongside this invasion on the Vaal River, however, is the water hyacinth, which remains South Africa’s most problematic aquatic invasive plant.

Julie Coetzee receives funding from the National Research Foundation. She is affiliated with the South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity (SAIAB).

• Hult International Business School has broken the GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS™ title for the “Most Nationalities in a Business Lesson.” Over 90 members of the Hult community came together at Hult’s Holborn campus in London on March 13, 2024, smashing the minimum of 50 nationalities in one business class to set the record.
• Students were thrilled to take part:
  “I feel like this was very representative of what’s normal at Hult.
• In my class alone, we’re represented by at least thirty different nations—and we only have a total of 60 people in our cohort,”—Tomaz Nicolai Diaz, US, Master’s in International Business.
• All attendees, which included undergraduate and postgraduate representatives, were required to stay for the entire 45-minute class to meet the requirements of Guinness World Records.

• The one-of-a-kind tapestries were designed by Unispace and woven by Las Tejedoras using more than 50,000 recycled plastic bags that once littered the coastal areas in Nicaragua.
• Today, the art pieces serve as inspiration for individual and corporate action in environmental conservation and Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEIB).
• A local collective of 17 women, Las Tejedoras has been crafting art from the waste on the Pacific Coast of Nicaragua since 2007.
• When they started, the beach was so overrun with plastic it was affecting tourism, the local economy, and posing a serious threat to marine species – specifically the turtles that use the beach for nesting.