Associate Professor: Plant and Soil Sciences
Programme Leader: Climate Change on Maize Production

Professor Tesfamariam completed his PhD in 2010. He worked as the head of the Soil and Water Conservation research unit and acting head of the Agricultural Engineering in the Department of Agricultural Research, Ministry of Agriculture of Eritrea as of 1997 until 2002.

Professor Eyob H. Tesfamariam is an agricultural systems modeller with research focus on water, nitrogen, and carbon cycles in agricultural ecosystems and the impact of climate change on crop and pasture production.

His current research emphasises on beneficial agricultural use of wastewater sludge and the impact of extreme weather event on maize production in South Africa. Since 2010 he is involved in a multidisciplinary research projects funded by the European Union under FP7 program, Department of Science and Technology, Water Research Commission (WRC), and East Rand Water Care Company (ERWAT). He collaborates with several research organisations nationally and internationally, including the French National Institute of Agricultural Research (INRA) and Research Council for Agriculture and the Analysis of Agricultural Economies of Italy (CREA) all related to the climate change. His research has lead to the development of a user friendly decision support tool for sludge application in agricultural lands across South African Agro-ecological zones, as well as assessing the impact of extreme weather event under changing climate on maize production in South Africa and potential adaptation and mitigation measures.

He has supervised and co-supervised 10 postgraduate students who have successfully completed their master’s and PhD degrees. He is currently the supervisor and co-supervisor of a further 10 master’s and PhD students.  At the undergraduate level, he teaches the course "Soil Water Relations and Irrigation" and at the postgraduate level "Advanced Environmental Soil Physics"