Location

Farm Heimat lies about 100 km south-east from Windhuk and has quite similar land scape and vegetation as RMZ farm, which mainly consists of patchy desiccated grass, bushes and some camel thorn trees. The farm is mainly used to raise livestock (cattle & sheep). The farms has a size of about 50 km², but the land cover (‘Kalahari bush’) and land use in a wide area (thousands of km²) around the farm is identical. Cattle are carefully managed and moved systematically between fenced off “camps” to avoid overgrazing.

Climate

The Kalahari is characterised by a hot and arid climate, which exhibits a natural seasonality: there is a small rainy season with little rain (September to November) and a big rainy season (January and March) with possible flooding. Outside the big rainy season the Kalahari bush is dry and the grass is quickly desiccated. In winter the high elevation of the station frequently results in cold temperatures well below freezing point. Due to the station's high elevation (1380 m a.s.l.) the water vapour column between the surface and a satellite is quite small (i.e. the half-height value w.r.t. sea level is 2 km): when not accounted for, this may cause significant error in satellite products.