Assessing urban growth and rural land use transformations in a cross-border situation in Northern Namibia and Southern Angola

Röder, Achim; Pröpper, Michael; Stellmes, Marion; Schneibel, Anne; Hill, Joachim

doi:10.1016/j.landusepol.2014.08.008

Cited by 40 publications

(43 citation statements)

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“…Burnt areas were successfully excluded from the analysis by taking the median pixel of the composite images, but extents were quantified using single dry season scenes. Fire is not considered a major land cover change transition, because regularly occurring fires are known to primarily affect the understory of woodland savannahs (as opposed to stand replacing fires) [29]. Urban areas were masked out due to their apparent spectral similarity with urban and agricultural areas, using the DMSP OLS at 1 km resolution.…”

Section: )mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Woodland conversion to agricultural land uses occurs as a continuous small-scale (2 ha) process of extraction and utilization of resources, driven by a need for permanent grazing pasture, construction timber and fire wood, and arable land for rain-fed cropping [17,29] (Figure 5a,b). Correspondingly, the process of cropland fallowing and subsequent woodland succession is constrained by diverse factors, chief among them being water availability, soil nutrient depletion, alterations and diminution of seedbanks, increased likelihood of fire disturbance and continual grazing pressure [38] (Figure 5c,d).…”

Section: Change Area Distribution and Transitionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As shown by the change matrix (Table S4), increases in the extent of urban areas (1994)(1995)(1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004) resulted mainly in the loss of agricultural land, while urban expansion in the latter period (2004-2014) primarily caused woodland losses. However, changes in the spatial extent of urban areas should be interpreted with caution, as urban growth may not always be linked with electricity [29]. Nevertheless, this method provides an alternative method for estimating of the extent of human influence on the landscape.…”

Section: Change Area Distribution and Transitionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Historically, large areas of woodland were cleared for crop farming, particularly in northern areas where soils and rainfall are better suited [38]. This trend continues and in recent decades new areas of woodland have been cleared for crops and settlements, with much of the deforestation taking place in two core areas, namely along the Okavango River and in western Ohangwena Region [29]. A rainfall gradient exists within the study area with a mean annual rainfall of 600 mm in the east to 400 mm in the west, and equally from north to south.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Mapping Decadal Land Cover Changes in the Woodlands of North Eastern Namibia from 1975 to 2014 Using the Landsat Satellite Archived Data

et al. 2016

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Woodlands and savannahs provide essential ecosystem functions and services to communities. On the African continent, they are widely utilized and converted to subsistence and intensive agriculture or urbanized. This study investigates changes in land cover over four administrative regions of North Eastern Namibia within the Kalahari woodland savannah biome, covering a total of 107,994 km 2 . Land cover is mapped using multi-sensor Landsat imagery at decadal intervals from 1975 to 2014, with a post-classification change detection method. The dominant change observed was a reduction in the area of woodland savannah due to the expansion of agriculture, primarily in the form of small-scale cereal and pastoral production. More specifically, woodland savannah area decreased from 90% of the study area in 1975 to 83% in 2004, and then increased to 86% in 2014, while agricultural land increased from 6% to 12% between 1975 and 2014. We assess land cover changes in relation to towns, villages, rivers and roads and find most changes occurred in proximity to these. In addition, we find that most land cover changes occur within land designated as communally held, followed by state protected land. With widespread changes occurring across the African continent, this study provides important data for understanding drivers of change in the region and their impacts on the distribution of woodland savannahs.

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Section: )mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Change Area Distribution and Transitionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Change Area Distribution and Transitionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Mapping Decadal Land Cover Changes in the Woodlands of North Eastern Namibia from 1975 to 2014 Using the Landsat Satellite Archived Data

et al. 2016

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“…The outcomes of the project were destined for rather different yet interlinked scales of this transboundary socialecological system and its multiple stakeholder audiences. Apart from critical academic contributions to the ecosystem services https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol22/iss3/art31/ debate (Pröpper 2015a, Röder et al 2015, they included: (1) baseline data assessments closing regional data gaps (e.g., on hydrology, fire management), (2) policy recommendations (e.g., water governance, forest management, soil fertility improvement, revaluation of cultural ecosystem services), and (3) scenarios for potential future pathways of management . The output of the project (reports, flyers, posters, films, data and mapping DVDs, talks and presentations) was handed to multiple audiences over the course of the project and during a final dissemination tour and is available in the countries involved and via the Internet.…”

Section: Sustainability Science In Africa: Linking Knowledge To Action?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Sustainability science as if the world mattered: sketching an art contribution by comparison

Pröpper¹

2017

E&S

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ABSTRACT. Here, I investigate some of the potential contributions of art to the emerging field of sustainability science. First, the involvement of sustainability thinking in art is massively increasing. Second, there is a line of interactions between art and science that do not necessarily take sustainability as their content, at least in an ecological sense. Third, there are a considerable number of examples of sustainability science projects that are intended to link knowledge to social action without involving art. I exemplarily compare these different combinations to gain a concise overview of and differentiate between current activities and to identify some shortcomings and potentials of various contributions. The utilitarian and rather pragmatic question I ask is: What does art have to offer to sustainability science that the latter currently lacks? This question is asked from my own anthropological viewpoint, that of cultural and social science, partaking in sustainability science. I use empirical insights from sustainability projects in Africa that I took part in, which specifically dealt with sustainable land management. I blend these findings with results from a broad literature review and a comparison of multiple existing art projects. I show that a sustainability science that aims to matter to people and that takes its core tenet of linking the produced knowledge to sustainable social action seriously while facing an existing crisis of agency and knowledge would strongly benefit from opening to an experimental and experiential approach to knowledge production that explicitly includes processual, affective, and sensory types of knowledge, imaginative agency, and conceptual forms of interaction.

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Spatial Assessment of Land Degradation Risk for the Okavango River Catchment, Southern Africa

et al. 2015

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The Okavango catchment in southern Africa is subject to environmental as well as socio‐economic transformation processes such as population growth and climate change. The degradation of soil and vegetation by deforestation and overgrazing is one of the downsides of this development, reducing the capacity of the land to provide ecosystem functions and services. In this study, climate simulations are brought together with secondary socioeconomic, pedologic and remote‐sensing data in a GIS‐based assessment of the factors commonly associated with land degradation risk. A high resolution overview is provided for decision‐makers and stakeholders in the region by identifying priority intervention areas where a long‐term decline in ecosystem function and land productivity is most likely to occur. The approach combines 19 risk factors into seven individual ratings for topography, landcover, soil, demography, infrastructure, livestock pressure and climate. These ratings are then weighted and combined into an integrated degradation risk index (DRI). The results show that the land degradation risk is quite heterogeneously distributed in the study area and caused by different factors. Three hot‐spots are identified and compared, one of which is in the far northwestern part of the catchment, one around the local center Rundu and one on the outskirts of the Okavango Delta. We conclude that the approach is suitable to give an overview on degradation risk in the study area, although the classification process is a crucial procedure that should be standardized for further research. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Assessing urban growth and rural land use transformations in a cross-border situation in Northern Namibia and Southern Angola

Cited by 40 publications

References 46 publications

Mapping Decadal Land Cover Changes in the Woodlands of North Eastern Namibia from 1975 to 2014 Using the Landsat Satellite Archived Data

Mapping Decadal Land Cover Changes in the Woodlands of North Eastern Namibia from 1975 to 2014 Using the Landsat Satellite Archived Data

Sustainability science as if the world mattered: sketching an art contribution by comparison

Spatial Assessment of Land Degradation Risk for the Okavango River Catchment, Southern Africa

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