Doctoral Dissertation Research: Using Remote Sensing to Create Indicators of Socio-Ecological System Resilience in Savannas of the Kavango-Zambezi Region of Southern Africa

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Most climate-change predictions identify Southern Africa as the world's most affected populated region, adding to the current problems of recurring droughts and crop failures, water scarcity issues, and high HIV infection rates. In particular, the savanna ecosystems throughout Southern Africa, on which millions of people depend for their livelihoods, are changing at a rapidly increasing rate. This project addresses changes in land and resource availability occurring as a result of climate and water variability and recent socio-economic changes in a semi-arid savanna region in Southern Africa. The research combines geospatial analyses of meteorological and hydrologic data and remote sensing techniques with socio-economic instruments to create measures of socio-ecological resilience and adaptability to natural and anthropogenic changes in sensitive ecosystems. The study area is the Chobe River Basin, a watershed shared between Botswana and Namibia, where different land-use management strategies and economic policies affect both the ecosystem and the livelihoods support system differentially. While the local communities in both countries are predominantly resource-dependent or derive substantial benefits from ecotourism, changes in the health of the ecosystem would have detrimental effects for the human system. Thus, understanding underlying biophysical drivers of change by accounting for different management regimes in the two countries and establishing indicators of ecosystem resilience is the first step in assessing socio-ecological resilience at the regional level. The measures include a flooding extent index, an ecosystem productivity index, and a fire manipulation index, each of which is related to the adaptability of socio-ecological systems to external change. Next, by using existing socio-economic data and livelihoods surveys, the research will establish the human response to both natural and anthropogenic changes and enhance understanding of local adaptation mechanisms to environmental change.This study assesses the influence of flooding and shifting fire regimes on driving vegetation dynamics in savanna watersheds and integrates quantitative biophysical analyses with quantitative socio-economic indicators to develop new ways of measuring socio-ecological resilience. The research will have implications for socio-ecological resilience theory because it seeks new quantitative measures in sensitive semi-arid ecosystems. This project will fill a gap in the land-change science literature as few studies have considered the effects of flooding, the world's most widespread and damaging natural disaster, on vegetation dynamics in semi-arid ecosystems. A clearer understanding of what drives changes in some ecosystems in Southern Africa would prove useful not only for better ecosystem management but also, and more importantly, for designing coping and adaptation strategies in the face of global climate change, human population growth, and increasing large-mammal populations. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.