Rangeland Livelihood Strategies under Varying Climate Regimes: Model Insights from Southern Kenya

Rangelands throughout sub-Saharan Africa are currently undergoing two major pressures: climate change (through altered rainfall and seasonality patterns) and habitat fragmentation (brought by land use change driven by land demand for agriculture and conservation). Here we explore these dimensions, investigating the impact of land use change decisions, by pastoralists in southern Kenya rangelands, on human well-being and animal densities using an agent-based model. The constructed agent-based model uses input biomass data simulated by the Lund-Potsdam-Jena General Ecosystem Simulator (LPJ-GUESS) dynamic vegetation model and parameterized with data from literature. Scenarios of land use change under different rainfall years, land tenure types and levels of wildlife conservation support were simulated. Reflecting reality, our results show livestock grazing as the predominant land use that changes with precipitation and land tenure leading to varying livelihood strategies. For example, agriculture is the most common livelihood in wet years and conservation levels increase with increasing support of wildlife conservation initiatives. Our model demonstrates the complex and multiple interactions between pastoralists, land management and the environment. We highlight the importance of understanding the conditions driving the sustainability of semi-arid rangelands and the communities they support, and the role of external actors, such as wildlife conservation investors, in East Africa

Application of the biomization technique in the Eastern Colombian Andes

Two pollen records (Lake Fuquene and Pantano de Martos) are analyzed in order to test the usefulness of the Biomization technique to management on forest adaptation to climate change. This work focuses on Biomes and Plant Functional Types response to climate changes on specific dates (18, 14, 12.5, 8 and 6 Kyr) along the Late Quaternary, as deduced from the pollen composition. Results show different responses of vegetation to changes in past environmental conditions, which can be attributed to the different altitudes of the two study sites. While biomes in Lake Fuquene (2500 m a.s.l.) shift from Cool Grassland at 18 Kyr to Cool Mixed Forest and Cool evergreen Forest at 6 Kyr ago, no biome shift is detected in Pantano de Martos (3200 m a.s.l.) through the Late Quaternary. A look to the different Plant Functional Types taking part on the surroundings of the study sites at different ages, together with the analyses of Arboreal / Non Arboreal pollen percentages, give a detailed idea of the ecosystem response to past climate changes. This study shows the potential of the Biomization technique as a simple and powerful tool to analyze ecosystem responses at local and regional scales

Performance assessment of urban precinct design: a scoping study

Executive Summary: Significant advances have been made over the past decade in the development of scientifically and industry accepted tools for the performance assessment of buildings in terms of energy, carbon, water, indoor environment quality etc. For resilient, sustainable low carbon urban development to be realised in the 21st century, however, will require several radical transitions in design performance beyond the scale of individual buildings. One of these involves the creation and application of leading edge tools (not widely available to built environment professions and practitioners) capable of being applied to an assessment of performance across all stages of development at a precinct scale (neighbourhood, community and district) in either greenfield, brownfield or greyfield settings. A core aspect here is the development of a new way of modelling precincts, referred to as Precinct Information Modelling (PIM) that provides for transparent sharing and linking of precinct object information across the development life cycle together with consistent, accurate and reliable access to reference data, including that associated with the urban context of the precinct. Neighbourhoods are the ‘building blocks’ of our cities and represent the scale at which urban design needs to make its contribution to city performance: as productive, liveable, environmentally sustainable and socially inclusive places (COAG 2009). Neighbourhood design constitutes a major area for innovation as part of an urban design protocol established by the federal government (Department of Infrastructure and Transport 2011, see Figure 1). The ability to efficiently and effectively assess urban design performance at a neighbourhood level is in its infancy. This study was undertaken by Swinburne University of Technology, University of New South Wales, CSIRO and buildingSMART Australasia on behalf of the CRC for Low Carbon Living

Late Pleistocene montane forest fire return interval estimates from Mount Kenya

Past forest fire events and fire frequencies are reconstructed with sediment-charcoal records at lake catchment spatial scales. Few quantitative palaeofire analyses exist in tropical montane forests, where fire return intervals are long (decadal and centennial scales) because of the infrequency of fire weather and fuel conditions. Fire return intervals are a key characteristic of fire regimes and changing fire frequencies rapidly alter land cover compositions and vegetation structure. Charcoal records from small lakes with relatively small catchments covered with dense forest provide an opportunity to reconstruct low-frequency, high-severity fires through a time series decomposition approach to identify charcoal peaks above a varying background rate as a proxy for palaeofire events. The sediment core from Rumuiku wetland on Mount Kenya, equatorial eastern Africa, accumulated a nearly linear age-depth model and provided a high temporal resolution (10 years cm -1 ) sieved charcoal count record (>125 µm). Pollen analysis showed a significant change in montane forest assemblage occurred at 21 200 cal a bp from a montane forest with abundant Podocarpus and Juniperus to a forest with more abundant Hagenia . This change in forest altered the vegetation composition and structure with concomitant changes to the fire regime. Forest biomass in the Hagenia forests decreased and it is likely that fire activity qualitatively changed toward lower intensity and lower severity fires. The quantitative fire event reconstruction focuses on the interval from 27 000 to 16 500 cal a bp and the older montane forest that experienced higher severity fires from 27 000 to 21 200 cal a bp, which reconstructed a temporally heterogeneous fire regime with fire return intervals that ranged from 30-430 years and a mean of 120 years (median 160 years) in the catchment. These are the first estimates of fire return intervals of mountain forests in eastern Africa. We then explore the potential for further comparative research and incremental research contributions to improve quantitative and qualitative palaeofire research in tropical forest ecosystems. We discuss the potential to use these types of data for characterizing variables of fire regimes prior to ostensibly significant modification by anthropogenic activity as well as during the recent past as human land use pressures increased within Afromontane forests

REDD+, hype, hope and disappointment : The dynamics of expectations in conservation and development pilot projects

We explore the dynamics of expectations in international forest conservation and development programs, and the impacts and implications of (unfulfilled) expectations for actors involved. Early stages of new international conservation and development programs, often involving pilot projects designed to test intervention concepts at village level, are characterized by large amounts of resources and attention, along with high expectations of success. However, evidence shows that these early expectations are rarely fulfilled. Despite this repeated pattern and growing engagement with expectations in critical conservation and development literature, little is known about the dynamics of expectations in conservation and development pilot projects. We address this knowledge gap first by exploring concepts from the sociology of expectations. We then unpack expectations in a case study of REDD+ pilot projects in Tanzania, using extensive qualitative data reflecting the perspectives and experiences of a wide range of actors involved. Our study finds that expectations play a performative role, mobilizing actors and resources, despite uncertainty identified among policy-makers and practitioners. We also find that once raised, expectations are dynamic and continually mediated by actors and social contexts, which conflicts with attempts to ‘manage’ them. We argue therefore that a trade-off exists between fully piloting new initiatives and raising expectations. We also argue that failure to address this trade-off has implications beyond pilot project objectives and timelines, which are experienced most acutely by village communities. We argue for more critical engagement with expectations and the embedding of accountability for expectations in conservation and development practice. Our findings also challenge the discourse of ‘needing’ to pilot, which prioritizes awareness, impact and innovation without fully considering the potential negative impact of unfulfilled expectations

Comparison and Prediction of the above Ground Carbon Storage in Croplands on the Inhabited Slopes on Mount Kilimanjaro (Tanzania) and the Taita Hills (Kenya)

Mount Kilimanjaro and the Taita Hills are adjacent montane areas that experience similar climate and agricultural activity, but which differ in their geologic history, nature of elevation gradients and cultures. We assessed differences in cropland above ground carbon (AGC) between the two sites and against environmental variables. One hectare sampling plots were randomly distributed along elevational gradients stratified by cropland type; AGC was derived from all trees with diameter ≥ 10 cm at breast height in each plot. Predictor variables were physical and edaphic variables and human population. A generalized linear model was used for predicting AGC with AIC used for ranking models. AGC was spatially upscaled in 2 km buffer and visually compared. Kilimanjaro has higher AGC in cropped and agroforestry areas than the Taita Hills, but only significant difference in AGC variation in agroforestry areas (F = 9.36, p = 0.03). AGC in cropped land and agroforestry in Kilimanjaro has significant difference on mean (t = 4.62, p = 0.001) and variation (F = 17.41, p = 0.007). In the Taita Hills, significant difference is observed only on the mean AGC (t = 4.86, p = 0.001). Common tree species that contribute the most to AGC in Kilimanjaro are Albizia gummifera and Persea americana, and in the Taita Hills Grevillea robusta and Mangifera indica . Significant and univariate predictors of AGC in Mount Kilimanjaro are pH (R2 = 0.80, p = 0.00) and EVI (R2 = 0.68, p = 0.00). On Mount Kilimanjaro, the top multivariate model contained SOC, CEC, pH and BLD (R2 = 0.90, p = 0.00), whereas in the Taita Hills, the top multivariate model contained elevation, slope and population (R2 = 0.89, p = 0.00). Despite of the difference in land management history of Mount Kilimanjaro and the Taita Hills, mean of AGC in croplands does not differ significantly. Difference occurs on variation of AGC, type of trees contributing AGC, and environmental variables that explain AGC distribution. The research results provide reference for management of carbon sequestration on inhabited montane areas.Peer reviewe

A 3000-year record of vegetation changes and fire at a high-elevation wetland on Kilimanjaro, Tanzania

Kilimanjaro is experiencing the consequences of climate change and multiple land-use pressures. Few paleoenvironmental and archeological records exist to examine historical patterns of late Holocene ecosystem changes on Kilimanjaro. Here we present pollen, phytolith, and charcoal (>125 μm) data from a palustrine sediment core that provide a 3000-year radiocarbon-dated record collected from a wetland near the headwaters of the Maua watershed in the alpine and ericaceous vegetation zones. From 3000 to 800 cal yr BP, the pollen, phytolith, and charcoal records show subtle variability in ericaceous and montane forest assemblages with apparent multicentennial secular variability and a long-term pattern of increasing Poaceae and charcoal. From 800 to 600 cal yr BP, montane forest taxa varied rapidly, Cyperaceae abundances increased, and charcoal remained distinctly low. From 600 yr cal BP to the present, woody taxa decreased, and ericaceous taxa and Poaceae dominated, with a conspicuously increased charcoal influx. Uphill wetland ecosystems are crucial for ecological and socioeconomic resilience on and surrounding the mountain. The results were synthesized with the existing paleoenvironmental and archaeological data to explore the high spatiotemporal complexity of Kilimanjaro and to understand historical human-environment interactions. These paleoenvironmental records create a long-term context for current climate, biodiversity, and land-use changes on and around Kilimanjaro

Time series analysis of long term palaeoecological records for the understanding climate change impacts on vegetal ecosystems

Manejo de datos paleoplinológicos a escala europea para generación de modelos climáticos continentale

Refining predictions of iberian plant distribution: lessons from p. nigra and p. sylvestris palaeoecological-based habitat suitability models

In recent years, challenged by the climate scenarios put forward by the IPCC and its potential impact on plant distribution, numerous predictive techniques -including the so called habitat suitability models (HSM)- have been developed. Yet, as the output of the different methods produces different distribution areas, developing validation tools are strong needs to reduce uncertainties. Focused in the Iberian Peninsula, we propose a palaeo-based method to increase the robustness of the HSM, by developing an ecological approach to understand the mismatches between the palaeoecological information and the projections of the HSMs. Here, we present the result of (1) investigating causal relationships between environmental variables and presence of Pinus sylvestris L. and P. nigra Arn. available from the 3rd Spanish Forest Inventory, (2) developing present and past presence-predictions through the MaxEnt model for 6 and 21 kyr BP, and (3) assessing these models through comparisons with biomized palaeoecological data available from the European Pollen Database for the Iberian Peninsula

Vegetation community structure, composition and distribution pattern in the Zaraninge Forest, Bagamoyo district,

ABSTRACT Zaraninge Forest, part of the Coastal Forest Biodiversity Hotspot of Tanzania, is threatened by human activities. The effect of such activities on the ecology of the forest is less known. Nested quadrat sampling technique was used along preestablished transect lines. Trees had a stem density of 521 ha -1 , the majority falling in Diameter at Breast Height (DBH) size classes 9.5 to 44.9 cm. There was no significant difference in species diversity between sampling areas, which had a Shannon's diversity index ranging from 1.64 to 2.63. PCA identified two vegetation sample groups with Baphia kirkii, Cynometra webberi, C. brachyrachis, Scorodophloeus fischeri and Tessmannia burttii being abundant in both groups. TWINSPAN revealed three vegetation communities: Community A was fragmented woodlands characterized by the effects of fire and exploitation and having few remaining individuals of the valuable timber trees Afzelia quanzensis and Pterocarpus angolensis; community B was growing in a moist ecologically rich habitat and included rare species (Inhambanella henriquesii), endemic species (T. burttii, C. brachyrachis and S. fischeri); and community C had dry habitats dominated by C. webberi and C. brachyrachis. We conclude that habitat characteristics, fire, past and the present exploitation clearly influence the species diversity, distribution and variation in vegetation communities. The results are discussed in context of current and future management plans for this ecologically important forest