Rangeland Ecology & Management

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DEGRADATION AND VULNERABILITY TO CLIMATE CHANGE IN HIGH ANDEAN RANGELANDS
Author
Pizarro, Samuel E.
Naupari, Javier A.
Publisher
Society for Range Management
Publication Year
2018
Body

This work seeks to identify the most important factors that causes the degradation process of rangelands, assess the degree of degradation and vulnerability to current climate change of these ecosystems; and determine if there is a relationship between the degree of rangeland degradation and vulnerability to climate change in high Andean rangelands. The study was located in the puna region of Ancash, Jun�n, Pasco, Huancavelica and Lima and involved the design of a framework to assess rangeland degradation based on field information and Landsat satellite products that was, contrasted with socioeconomic, ecological and location variables. �The estimation of vulnerability to climate change was assessed with the Analytic hierarchy process (AHP) in a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) platform. The main factors in order of importance associated with the serious and extreme degradation process were the loss of vegetation fractional cover (VFC) from previous years, increments in the annual average temperature, high animal density, poor protection policies, high population density and low rock weathering index. Around 80% of the rangelands were classified as extreme and serious degraded, where the district of Santa Ana, Huancavelica, was the most degraded (extreme), and the district of Olleros, Ancash, less degraded (serious) with a tendency to increase the degraded areas. Extreme and heavy vulnerability was around 85%, and the main factors in order of importance associated with this index were low FCV, high slope, low rock weathering index, low precipitation, long distance to water sources, high population density, high annual average temperature and high animal density. Tomas district, Lima, was the most vulnerable, and Canchayllo, Jun�n, the least vulnerable, with a vulnerability tendency to keep increasing. Lastly we found a positive spatial correlation between degradation and vulnerability to climate change in high Andean rangelands (Pearson = 0.67, Spearman = 0.61).

Language
English
Resource Type
Text
Document Type
Conference Proceedings
Conference Name
SRM Reno, NV