14 research outputs found
Spatio-temporal land use/cover dynamics and its implication for sustainable land use in Wanka watershed, northwestern highlands of Ethiopia
Long-term land use and land cover (LULC) dynamics information is essential to understand the trends and make necessary land management interventions, such as in the highlands of Ethiopia. This study analyzed six decades of LULC dynamics of Wanka watershed, Northwestern Ethiopian highlands. Two sets of aerial photographs (1957 and 2017), SPOT 5 and sentinel satellite imageries were analyzed. In addition, key informant interviews, focus group discussions and field observations were used to identify the drivers and impact of LULC change. It was found that cultivated and rural settlement land (CRSL), bare land, and urban built up area have been continuously expanded at the expenses of mainly forest and shrub lands. Over the entire study period (1957–2017) while the bare land and CRSL have increased by about 59% and 20% respectively, forest and shrub lands have declined by 59% and 57% respectively. Urban built up area has also expanded. The impact of popula- tion pressure and expansion of CRSL land were considerable. The trend of LULC dynamics in the study watershed implies adverse impact on the quality and quantity of the land resource. Hence, appropriate land use planning and strategies that reduce expansion of cultivated land need to be practiced
Identification of a Tsal152–75 salivary synthetic peptide to monitor cattle exposure to tsetse flies
Reimagining invasions; the social and cultural impacts of Prosopis on pastoralists in Southern Afar
Abstract Whilst the environmental impacts of biological invasions are clearly conceptualised and there is growing evidence on the economic benefits and costs, the social and cultural dimensions remain poorly understood. This paper presents the perceptions of pastoralist communities in southern Afar, Ethiopian lowlands, on one invasive species, Prosopis juliflora. The socio-cultural impacts are assessed, and the manner in which they interact with other drivers of vulnerability, including political marginalisation, sedentarisation and conflict, is explored. The research studied 10 communities and undertook semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions with pastoralists and agro-pastoralists. These results were supported by interviews with community leaders and key informants. The benefits and costs were analysed using the asset-based framework of the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework and the subject-focused approach of Wellbeing in Development. The results demonstrate that the costs of invasive species are felt across all of the livelihood capital bases (financial, natural, physical, human and social) highlighted within the framework and that the impacts cross multiple assets, such as reducing access through blocking roads. The concept of Wellbeing in Development provides a lens to examine neglected impacts, like conflict, community standing, political marginalisation and cultural impoverishment, and a freedom of definition and vocabulary to allow the participants to define their own epistemologies. The research highlights that impacts spread across assets, transcend objective and subjective classification, but also that impacts interact with other drivers of vulnerability. Pastoralists report deepened and broadened conflict, complicated relationships with the state and increased sedentarisation within invaded areas. The paper demonstrates that biological invasions have complex social and cultural implications beyond the environmental and economic costs which are commonly presented. Through synthesising methodologies and tools which capture local knowledge and perceptions, these implications and relationships are conceptualised
The impacts of land use and land cover dynamics on natural resources and rural livelihoods in Dedza District, Malawi
Investigating syndromes of agricultural land degradation through past trajectories and future scenarios
Analyses of land use and land cover change dynamics using GIS and remote sensing during 1984 and 2015 in the Beressa Watershed Northern Central Highland of Ethiopia
Community perceptions on spatio-temporal land use changes in the Amboseli ecosystem, southern Kenya
Livelihoods, land use and land cover change in the Zambezi Region, Namibia
This paper examines the socio-economic drivers of land use and land
cover change and assesses the impacts of such changes to rural livelihoods in the
Zambezi region of northern Namibia. We carried out a longitudinal analysis of
Landsat imagery of land use and land cover. The analysis revealed that the amount
of land in the region covered by forest increased significantly in the period from
1991 to 2010 whilst crop/grass land decreased. Focus group meetings, key informant
interviews and semi-structured interviews covering 424 households stratified
by gender were used. The results show that natural resource uses are vitally important
in the rural livelihoods. The drivers of land use and land cover change are
agricultural expansion, population increase and illegal logging. Livelihood coping
strategies include piecework, food aid, borrowing from relatives and wild food
collection. By gender stratification, piecework contributed 37 and 63 % while agriculture contributed 29 and 71 % of the income of male- and female-headed
households. Logistic regression analysis showed knowledge of regulations, age
group and species availability significantly (p\0.05) influenced the choice of a
household’s livelihood coping strategy. The study concludes that the changes in
coping strategies influenced by a variety of factors have led to the diminished use of
natural resources. For policy purposes, this suggests that state interventions can play
a significant role in promoting more sustainable natural resource usage. This analysis
enables effective decision-making to reconcile the efforts of sustainable development
and natural resource management.University of Pretoria and the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry in Namibia. Southern African Science Service Centre for Climate Change and Adaptive Land Management (SASSCAL).http://link.springer.com/journal/111112016-12-31hb201