WINETECH Technical Yearbook 2021

VITICULTURE RESEARCH | APRIL 2021

TerraClim – high resolution temperature layers are available and so much more TARA SOUTHEY: Centre for Geographical Analysis, Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch KEYWORDS: Climate, terrain, GIS, innovation, suitability.

The integrated data resources are displayed through a user-friendly interface (www. terraclim.co.za), thereby addressing the limited accessibility to climate/terrain information experienced by the agriculture sector. The results from the TerraClim research and development is novel and new to the Western Cape and continue to ensure improved accuracy of temperature layers created to aid effective decision making. Technical transfer of the TerraClim platform to industry and potential user pay clients continues to return positive feedback. Some key results in 2020 include: • Finalisation of the central climate database ingestion procedures. • Improvements to www.terraclim.co.za reporting functionality. • Application of regional climate surface interpolation. • High density temperature and relative humidity logger network extension. • Suitability analysis using vineyard planting database.

climate change at regional, farm and vineyard level. The integrated geospatial database (geodatabase) is suitable for dynamic mapping, statistical interrogation, data mining, machine learning and climate change analyses. This is of great value to the producer in the Western Cape, due to the highly complex climate (ranging from semi-arid to mediterranean) and topography (mountainous to planar) and in the context of increased seasonal variability, understanding trends over space and time at farm and field level would contribute to economically sustainable decision making. TerraClim solves the problem of data inaccessibility by providing highly detailed, up-to-date, field-specific climate data at regional scales. This data is ideal for generating historic and current climatic and physical (terroir) profiles for each individual field, orchard or vineyard.

Calculated hourly threshold maps as hours above 18°C and 30°C for each growing season over five years (2015-2019).

TERRACLIM TO ADAPT, strategise, leverage change and building resilience in the face of great uncertainty. The TerraClim project is one of Winetech’s flagship projects that aims to improve the understanding of climate change in the Western Cape and how the grapevine/ plant responds to these changes. Specific

objectives include building a comprehensive climate and terrain database, using new research and technologies to spatialise climate, terrain and vineyard information. TerraClim uses automated functionality to collate, improve, spatialise and disseminate climate data, empowering the farmer and researcher to better analyse and mitigate

WINETECH TECHNICAL YEARBOOK 2021 | 11