Volume 15 (2014 / 2015) Article 10

In search of spring mires in Namibia: the Waterberg area revisited

by A.P. Grootjans, A.J.M. Jansen, P.C. de Hullu, H. Joosten, A. Bootsma and P.-L. Grundling

Published online: 31.07.2015

Summary

The scarcity of peatlands and mires in Namibia is well known. Peatlands have been found in the north, which is the wettest part of the country. In the 1930s, spring mires were reported by German geologists in the Waterberg area, which also has relatively high annual precipitation. This short note reports some field observations and a literature search for old documents that mention the occurrence of springs and spring mires in the Waterberg region. The search was done by IMCG members who visited the Waterberg area in August 2014. We found springs, but no real mires. However, we found remnants of what might have been a large spring mire similar to that reported by the German geologist Paul Range, who found “local spring mires (Quellmoore) with a peat thickness of several metres in northern South-West Africa”. Whether or not our peat remnants were situated at the same site as the Range discovery could not be assessed. We compared the landscape position of the peat remnants and spring in the Waterberg area of Namibia with information from an ongoing ecohydrological study in the Waterberg area of Limpopo Province, South Africa.

Citation

Grootjans, A.P., Jansen, A.J.M., de Hullu, P.C., Joosten, H., Bootsma, A. & Grundling, P.-L. (2015): In search of spring mires in Namibia: the Waterberg area revisited. Mires and Peat 15: Art. 10. (Online: http://www.mires-and-peat.net/pages/volumes/map15/map1510.php)

Reviewers

IMCG and IPS acknowledge the work of the reviewers.