Living Planet award for river expert

Dr Jackie King, an international river-flow expert and retired UCT academic, has won the World Wide Fund for Nature South Africa’s (WWF-SA) Living Planet Award 2016.

The prestigious award was conferred at WWF-SA’s fourth Living Planet Conference in Johannesburg where she was a keynote speaker. As a leading aquatic ecologist in South Africa, King was praised for “inspiring several generations of scientists, planners and legislators in South Africa and around the world”.

She was a principal research officer in UCT’s former Freshwater Research Unit. Over the past four decades, she has been part of and has led scientific teams working on the river-flow management of many of the world’s major river systems, among them the Nile, Mekong, Indus and Okavango.

King was recognised for her leading role in ensuring that aquatic ecological research led to the sustainable development and management of river systems and, in particular, her innovative and practical approaches, which gave effect to improved water management in the real world.

Photo World Wide Fund for Nature.