Projects

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African river basins: catchment-scale carbon fluxes and transformations (AFRIVAL). KU Leuven

Steven Bouillon
Division of Soil and Water Management
This project wishes to fundamentally improve our understanding of the role of tropical freshwater ecosystems in carbon (C) cycling on the catchment scale. It uses an unprecedented combination of state-of-the-art proxies (e.g., stable isotope, 14C and biomarker signatures, field measurements of relevant biogeochemical processes). We focus on tropical systems since there is a striking lack of data on such systems, even though riverine C transport ...

Whaleboats in the Forest: Subaltern Technologies of Transportation on Congo’s Inland Waterways KU Leuven

Filip De Boeck
Institute for Anthropological Research in Africa

Congo’s wooden baleinières (Fr. whaleboats) are locally developed and crafted socio-technical assemblages that account for up to 50% of all transportation of goods and people on the waterways of the Congo Basin. Despite the vital role of these subaltern technologies of transportation for the livelihoods of millions, the socio-technical complexities responsible for their success have never been studied. Rooted in older boat building traditions ...

Reconstructing the biogeochemistry of tropical aquatic ecosystems using elemental and stable isotope tracers in freshwater bivalve shells KU Leuven

Steven Bouillon
Division of Soil and Water Management

Aquatic ecosystems are vulnerable to changes in land use, climate, and nutrient inputs, as the material they transport is directly influenced by a range of catchment characteristics. This is particularly true for tropical systems which are under increasing stress and are sensitive early indicators of catchment modifications. However, long-term datasets on discharge or aquatic biogeochemistry are virtually non-existent. An elegant method to ...