Climate change predictions for southern Africa are complex and sometimes contradictory. This is especially true of rainfall trends. There appears to be consensus, however, with regards to the predictions that there will be warming across the region, and that we are likely to see more intense rainfall events. There is an overall drying trend especially in the interior and towards the west of the region.

Predicting the response of wetlands to climate change is even more difficult, and will essentially depend on the wetland's sources of water. In a review of wetland response to climate change, we looked at wetlands across a gradient of complexity – ranging from pans or depressions, which tend to be the simplest wetland types in terms of hydrology, and which consequently are expected to show direct responses to increases or decreases in precipitation, through to wetlands that are connected to the fluvial network, and are thus more complex hydrologically. It is more difficult to predict how these more complex wetlands will respond to climatic change, while these wetlands often play a more important role in ecosystem services provision. The range of wetland types across southern Africa allows for the exploration of trends that may occur as the climate shifts.

In addition to exploring the response of wetlands to climate change, the webinar will look at the role that wetlands can play in achieving landscape resilience into the future. Wetlands support human communities and can alleviate some of the impacts of climate and even land-use change. The ecosystem services wetlands offer, especially in relation to flood alleviation and sediment dynamics, water quality improvement, and flow regulation, are critical to our existence. The demand for these services is increasing as both climate and land-use change push us into a tighter corner. Different wetland types and attributes offer a diversity of ecosystem services across the landscape. Wetland management and conservation must consider these services, and aim for landscape resilience, where this diversity of wetlands and the services they offer are maintained, managed and restored.

Examples will be drawn from the Western Cape, where we are likely to see a significant shift from temperate towards a hot and semi-arid steppe climate by the 2080s.