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

大多数气候变化预测都认为，南部非洲是世界上受影响最严重的人口稠密地区，这加剧了当前的干旱和作物歉收、水资源短缺和高艾滋病感染率等问题。特别是整个南部非洲的稀树草原生态系统，数百万人赖以生存，正在以迅速增加的速度发生变化。本项目研究南部非洲半干旱热带稀树草原地区由于气候和水的变化以及最近的社会经济变化而导致的土地和资源可用性的变化。该研究将气象和水文数据的地理空间分析以及遥感技术与社会经济手段结合起来，以创建敏感生态系统对自然和人为变化的社会生态恢复力和适应性的措施。研究区域是乔贝河流域，这是博茨瓦纳和纳米比亚共享的分水岭，不同的土地利用管理策略和经济政策对生态系统和生计支持系统的影响不同。虽然这两个国家的当地社区主要依赖资源或从生态旅游中获得大量利益，但生态系统健康的变化将对人类系统产生有害影响。因此，通过考虑两国不同的管理制度，了解变化的潜在生物物理驱动因素，并建立生态系统恢复力指标，是评估区域层面社会生态恢复力的第一步。这些指标包括洪水范围指数、生态系统生产力指数和火灾操纵指数，每一个指标都与社会生态系统对外部变化的适应性有关。接下来，通过利用现有的社会经济数据和生计调查，研究将建立人类对自然和人为变化的响应，并加强对当地环境变化适应机制的理解。本研究评估了洪水和火情变化对稀树草原流域植被动态的影响，并将定量生物物理分析与定量社会经济指标相结合，开发了衡量社会生态恢复力的新方法。这项研究将对社会生态弹性理论产生影响，因为它在敏感的半干旱生态系统中寻求新的定量措施。这个项目将填补土地变化科学文献的空白，因为很少有研究考虑到洪水对半干旱生态系统植被动态的影响。洪水是世界上最广泛和最具破坏性的自然灾害。更清楚地了解是什么导致了南部非洲一些生态系统的变化，不仅有助于更好地管理生态系统，而且更重要的是，有助于设计应对和适应策略，以应对全球气候变化、人口增长和大型哺乳动物数量的增加。作为博士论文研究改进奖，该奖项还将提供支持，使有前途的学生建立一个强大的独立研究生涯。

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.