Rangeland Ecology & Management
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- Library Collection RecordThe tropics cover 8.2 billion hectares or approximately 40% of the world's land area. These regions are characterized by a large portion of the world's rapidly increasing population, high…Publication Date 2002
- carbon dioxide
- carbon dynamics
- carbon sequestration
- Carbon Sink
- greenhouse gases
- climate change
- soils
- socio-economic aspects
- land use
- agriculture
- southern Africa
- Library Collection Record
2 Savanna
Savannas are characterized by the coexistence of trees and grasses and occur largely in the seasonal tropics between the equatorial rainforests and mid-latitude desert ecosystems. This article…Publication Date 2008- climate change
- Deciduous
- Evergreen
- fire
- grazing
- herbivory
- phenology
- Seasonal tropics
- soils
- Tree and grass competition
- savanna
- ecology
- animal impact
- grasslands
- rainfall
- southern Africa
- Library Collection RecordSummary Grasslands are located in areas with precipitation ranging between 150 and 1200 mm yr-1 and temperature between 0 and 25 C (Lieth and Whittaker, 1975). Along a precipitation gradient, in…Publication Date 2001
- grasslands
- rainfall
- ecosystem ecology
- southern Africa
- Library Collection RecordIn the Sahel and the Kalahari, the growth in groundwater extraction via simple wells and boreholes is contributing to an increased use of dryland natural resources, to competition for resources, and…Publication Date 2003
- rangeland condition
- rainfall
- groundwater
- animal production
- vegetation dynamics
- biodiversity
- bush thickening
- indigenous encroaching species
- southern Africa
- Library Collection RecordSummary The savanna biome is diverse, including formations ranging from almost treeless grasslands to more or less closed-canopy woodlands with considerable variation in plant composition, biomass,…Publication Date 2001
- savanna
- animal production
- plant production
- plant community ecology
- land use
- degradation
- agriculture
- ecology
- southern Africa
- Library Collection RecordSummary The West Coast Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership (WESTCARB) is one of seven partnerships established by the US Department of Energy (DOE) to evaluate carbon dioxide capture, transport…Publication Date 2005
- carbon dioxide
- carbon sequestration
- climate change
- Carbon Sink
- monitoring
- land use
- southern Africa
- Library Collection RecordTransformation of indigenous vegetation for production purposes impacts negatively on biodiversity but does this necessarily equate with a decrease in phytomass accumulation, which may influence…Publication Date 2008
- grasslands
- plant production
- carbon sequestration
- land use
- management
- conservation
- agriculture
- pasture management
- biodiversity
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordSince the rise of its first democratically elected government in 1994, South Africa has sought to redress its highly inequitable land distribution through a series of land-reform programs. In this…Publication Date 2008
- land redistribution
- Limpopo Province
- political ecology
- South Africa
- Western Cape Province
- land reform
- policies
- land use
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordSummary * 1Grasses using the C4 photosynthetic pathway dominate today's savanna ecosystems and account for ~20% of terrestrial carbon fixation. However, this dominant status was reached only…Publication Date 2008
- atmospheric CO2
- C4 plants
- climate change
- fire
- grasslands
- grazing
- Poaceae
- rainfall
- savanna
- seasonality
- carbon dioxide
- palaeoclimate
- palaeobotany
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordAbstract Anthropogenic perturbations have profoundly modified the Earth's biogeochemical cycles, the most prominent of these changes being manifested by global carbon (C) cycling. We…Publication Date 2007
- carbon sequestration
- 13C NMR
- deforestation
- land-use change
- NEXAFS
- organic matter composition
- Sr-FTIR-ATR
- synchrotron radiation
- land use
- grasslands
- vegetation dynamics
- carbon dynamics
- soil organic carbon
- agriculture
- Africa
- Library Collection Record[1] Land use/cover change has been recognized as a key component in global change. Various land cover data sets, including historically reconstructed, recently observed, and future projected, have…Publication Date 2007
- land use
- climate change
- management
- classification
- data analysis
- remote sensing
- modelling
- rainfall
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordIt has been well established that drought frequently emerges in several tropical regions following the onset of El Niño. An important characteristic of such droughts is their spatial extent, which…Publication Date 2006
- drought
- climate change
- El Nino
- rainfall
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordIn Kenya, lands surrounding wildlife protected areas (PAs), referred to as dispersal areas, have undergone widespread land use changes, but these have been little studied. This study investigated…Publication Date 2008
- conservation
- agriculture
- national parks
- land use
- grazing
- biodiversity
- disturbance
- rainfall
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordDegradation in arid and semi-arid regions can be ascribed primarily to environmental conditions such as extreme changes in temperature and erratic rainfall patterns. Seed germination and seedling…Publication Date 2006
- Drought Stress
- polyethylene glycol (PEG)
- restoration
- rangelands
- seeds
- germination
- grasslands
- rainfall
- climate
- drought
- plant autecology
- restoration ecology
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordThe response of photosynthetic activity to interannual rainfall variations in Africa South of the Sahara is examined using 20 years (1981-2000) of Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) AVHRR…Publication Date 2007
- NDVI
- vegetation
- rainfall
- Land cover
- soil properties
- Interannual variability
- Africa
- remote sensing
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordEarly warning systems (EWS) tend to focus on the identification of slow onset disasters such famine and epidemic disease. Since hazardous environmental conditions often precede disastrous outcomes by…Publication Date 2006
- Early warning
- Africa
- food security
- NDVI
- precipitation
- rainfall
- Malaria
- Rift valley fever
- Pastoral livelihoods
- modelling
- drought
- management
- system ecology
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordSavanna ecosystems of southern Africa are strongly influenced by water availability and fire intensity, and this study aimed to show whether these two specific environmental variables are reflected…Publication Date 2008
- calibration
- Kruger National Park
- fire history
- quantitative analysis
- Relevant Source Area of Charcoal
- fire ecology
- palaeobotany
- rainfall
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordThe tree-grass interactions of African savannas are mainly determined by varying rainfall patterns and soil fertility. Large savanna trees are known to modify soil nutrient conditions, but whether…Publication Date 2007
- canopy
- Fibre content
- Grass structure
- grazing
- nitrogen
- phosphorus
- savanna
- rainfall
- soil fertility
- plant production
- nutrition
- soil organic carbon
- biomass
- forage quality
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordThe coexistence of woody and grassy plants in savannas has often been attributed to a rooting-niche separation (two-layer hypothesis). Water was assumed to be the limiting resource for both growth…Publication Date 2006
- fire
- grazing
- Honeycomb rippling model
- Inter-tree competition
- Spatio-temporal rainfall variation
- Tree-grass coexistence
- savanna
- indigenous encroaching species
- grasslands
- soil moisture
- rainfall
- vegetation dynamics
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordThis review discusses persistent tensions in efforts to secure land rights in Africa's drylands. Some researchers and practitioners advocate for formal, legal recognition of group rights as a…Publication Date 2008
- drylands
- Secure access
- land tenure
- Customary rights
- natural resources
- Multiple users
- Africa
- subsistence agriculture
- land use
- policies
- socio-economic aspects
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordSummary Robust calibration of hydrological models, driven by gridded precipitation data derived from either Regional Climate Models or statistical downscaling of General Circulation Models, is…Publication Date 2008
- groundwater
- recharge
- precipitation
- distribution
- Africa
- rainfall
- hydrology
- climate change
- soil moisture
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordSummary The Okavango basin comprises the Cuito and Cubango active catchment areas in Angola, in addition to the Kavango-Okavango non-active catchment in northern Namibia and Botswana. The Okavango…Publication Date 2006
- Okavango River
- Livelihoods
- economic development
- Natural Environment
- Botswana
- Namibia
- Angola
- socio-economic aspects
- eco - tourism
- land use
- degradation
- ecosystem ecology
- ecosystem dynamics
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordWe are attempting to set up a new protocol for palaeoecological reconstruction in relation to the fossil hominin site Laetoli, Tanzania. This is based on the premise that habitat variability in the…Publication Date 2008
- Habitat variability
- rainfall
- climate
- topography
- soil
- Hominins
- ecology
- paleoecology
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordNamibian rangelands are encroached with Acacia mellifera, partially resulting from a poor understanding of vegetation dynamics. A conceptual state-and-transition model of vegetation dynamics in the…Publication Date 2008
- fire
- hazards
- management
- opportunities
- state-and-transition
- savanna
- indigenous encroaching species
- bush thickening
- rainfall
- seed banks
- vegetation dynamics
- plant autecology
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordThis paper provides a reappraisal of contemporary perspectives on climate change in southern Africa's Okavango Delta sub-region by drawing on time-line evidence from historical/archival records…Publication Date 2008
- Bush-encroachment
- desiccation
- deterioration
- Human interventions
- wetland
- climate change
- remote sensing
- hydrology
- rainfall
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordDespite the ubiquity of sub-tropical savannas throughout the earth, limitations of savanna productivity are understudied relative to other terrestrial systems. The limitations of savanna productivity…Publication Date 2008
- grass
- nitrogen
- phosphorus
- savanna
- rainfall
- soil nutrients
- plant production
- plant autecology
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordA number of studies have begun to show the large impact that pastoralism has on African savanna ecosystems. Here we look at the impact of abandoned settlements on the distribution of the large…Publication Date 2008
- pastoralism
- Sedentarization
- primary succession
- Nutrient hotspots
- community
- land use
- Abandoned lands
- vegetation dynamics
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordThe Kalahari sand sheet, with a 2.5-million ha area, is probably the largest continuous surface of sand in the world. The Kalahari Transect (KT) is one of a set of IGBP 'megatransects '…Publication Date 2007
- biogeochemistry
- Hydraulic properties
- Kalahari transect
- Sand deposits
- stable isotopes
- ecosystem dynamics
- vegetation dynamics
- soil organic carbon
- Soil Condition
- soil nutrients
- rainfall
- grasslands
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordBiodiversity is a critical component of the natural environment and the protection of it often meant the displacement of local communities in developing countries. The Richtersveld National Park (…Publication Date 2007
- rangelands
- conservation
- Population crashes
- Herd recovery
- goats
- biodiversity
- socio-economic aspects
- national parks
- sheep
- pastoralism
- land use
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordThe phenology of three dominant and economically important tree species; Acacia erioloba, Acacia luederitzii and Acacia mellifera, all widespread in the Kalahari in Botswana, was studied at Tsabong (…Publication Date 2007
- Kalahari
- phenology
- Acacia luederitzii
- Acacia erioloba
- Acacia mellifera
- litter
- plant autecology
- climate change
- rainfall
- fodder production
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordThis paper introduces the Special Issue on Sustainable Land Use in Namaqualand which arose out of a conference held in the region in May 2005. It outlines the main themes and issues covered by 19…Publication Date 2007
- degradation
- Environmental history
- Karoo
- restoration
- semi-arid
- land reform
- sustainability
- land use
- restoration ecology
- socio-economic aspects
- politics
- subsistence agriculture
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordA national-level land degradation risk monitoring system identified an important grazing area in central northern Namibia as an area at risk of environmental change. A time series analysis of primary…Publication Date 2007
- semi-arid
- local knowledge
- rainfall variability
- water supply
- grazing
- land management
- degradation
- data analysis
- grasslands
- livestock
- rainfall
- participatory rural appraisal
- decision support systems
- management
- traditional knowledge
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordWe investigated the effects of rainfall and the number of animals on changes in vegetation and on the output of milk and meat from the communal areas of Namaqualand. Previously published short- and…Publication Date 2007
- climate change
- degradation
- desert
- Karoo
- livestock production
- Disequilibrium
- sustainability
- animal nutrition
- rainfall
- pastoralism
- subsistence agriculture
- animal production
- management
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordAdvanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR), Normalized Difference Vegetation Index data (NDVI, 1 km2, 1985-2003) and modeled net primary production (NPP, 8 km2, 1981-2000) data were used to…Publication Date 2007
- monitoring
- AVHRR
- NDVI
- rain-use efficiency
- NPP
- Communal lands
- South Africa
- degradation
- land use
- remote sensing
- NDVI values
- mapping
- rainfall
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordWe use the concept of ecological revolutions to explain the environmental history of Namaqualand, from the advent of pastoralism 2000 years BP, to colonial settlement in the 18th century and finally…Publication Date 2007
- degradation
- Environmental history
- human impact
- population
- repeat photography
- socio-economic aspects
- agriculture
- grazing
- management
- land use
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordDegradation in semi-arid Karoo rangelands has been ascribed to over-utilization by livestock and variations in rainfall regime. The understanding of vegetation dynamics in confined plant-herbivore…Publication Date 2006
- African wild herbivore
- Herbivore exclosure
- plant functional type
- Protected area
- vegetation monitoring
- rangelands
- rangeland condition
- vegetation dynamics
- livestock
- grazing
- land use
- national parks
- rainfall
- monitoring
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordFragmentation of the ecosystems of the earth into spatially isolated units has emerged as a primary component of global change. Often, fragmentation results from actions that are intended to enhance…Publication Date 2008
- fragmentation
- rangelands
- adaptation
- public policy
- Economic Aspects
- policies
- management
- land use
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordAs part of an investigation of land degradation in the South African Karoo, three types of fine sediment signatures (radionuclides, mineral magnetism and sediment geochemistry) were used to trace the…Publication Date 2007
- Sediment fingerprinting
- South African Karoo
- Erosion history
- Extreme events
- 137Cs and 210Pb
- land use
- soils
- management
- grazing
- fire
- livestock
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordTransfrontier conservation has taken Southern Africa by storm, where the modus operandi remains simple and intuitive: by dissolving boundaries, local benefits grow as conservation and development…Publication Date 2008
- Transfrontier conservation
- Neoliberalism
- Community-based natural resources management
- Livelihoods
- South Africa
- transfrontier parks
- conservation
- socio-economic aspects
- eco-tourism
- decision support systems
- economics
- policies
- land use
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordLand use change and livelihood systems are often analyzed separately or with one "driving "the other. This "driver-feedback "relationship has been buttressed by approaches to…Publication Date 2006
- land use
- Livelihoods
- Co-production
- South Africa
- Ghana
- Drivers of change
- socio-economic aspects
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordLand management in tropical woodlands is being used to sequester carbon (C), alleviate poverty and protect biodiversity, among other benefits. Our objective was to determine how slash-and-burn…Publication Date 2008
- savanna
- Tropical deciduous forest
- basal area
- Allometric equations
- Wood density
- soil bulk density
- Soil C stock
- biodiversity
- Shannon index
- Chronosequence
- land use
- carbon dioxide
- carbon sequestration
- socio-economic aspects
- management
- soil organic carbon
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordSouth Africa is poorly endowed with natural forests, and is heavily dependent on plantations of exotic forestry species to meet its timber needs. The first forest plantations of exotic trees were…Publication Date 2007
- forest plantations
- Hydrological impacts
- legislation
- Licensing
- South Africa
- hydrology
- land use
- monitoring
- decision support systems
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordElevated levels of nitrate in streamwaters draining forested catchments in the eastern escarpment area of South Africa are thought to occur as a result of land use change from natural high altitude…Publication Date 2006
- Nitrogen mineralisation
- nitrification
- nitrogen fixation
- nitrate leaching
- forest soils
- land use
- degradation
- grasslands
- pollution
- nutrient loads
- Soil Condition
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordThis paper describes a procedure for evaluating the desertification risk in threatened areas. The procedure is based on an eight-equation dynamic model of a generic human-resource system that can be…Publication Date 2008
- Desertification risk
- System Dynamics
- Alternative long-term states
- desertification
- modelling
- management
- grasslands
- sustainability
- land use
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordMany mechanisms have been suggested to explain the coexistence of woody species and grasses in savannas, yet, evidence from field studies and simulation models has been mixed. Shrub encroachment is…Publication Date 2007
- Patch-dynamics
- Cyclical succession
- shrub encroachment
- Spatially explicit root growth
- Computer simulation model
- Validation
- Latin Hypercube sensitivity analysis
- Acacia mellifera
- savanna
- indigenous encroaching species
- vegetation dynamics
- ecosystem ecology
- modelling
- rainfall
- fire
- soil moisture
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordIn semiarid savannas of Southern Africa current land use practices and climate change may lead to substantial changes of vegetation structure in the near future, however uncertainty remains about the…Publication Date 2006
- Acacia erioloba
- Bush encroachment
- global change
- Grewia flava
- overgrazing
- seed dispersal
- shrub encroachment
- Southern Kalahari
- Spatial-explicit simulation model
- savanna
- land use
- grazing
- climate change
- vegetation dynamics
- cattle
- ecosystem ecology
- ecosystem dynamics
- rainfall
- fire ecology
- modelling
- conservation
- management
- carrying capacity
- biodiversity
- indigenous encroaching species
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordUnlike any other biome, savannas consist of both trees and grasses in a persistent and equitable manner. This unique mixture of two different life forms attracted scientific scrutiny for decades.…Publication Date 2006
- Terminalia sericea
- Shallow root system
- savannas
- rainfall
- Etosha National Park
- grazing
- indigenous encroaching species
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordThis paper forms part of a long-term study of land degradation in the Klein Seekoei valley in the Sneeuberg uplands about 30 km southwest of the town of Middelburg, South Africa (Fig. 1). Landscape…Publication Date 2006
- erosion
- Karoo
- rainfall intensity
- Stock numbers
- land degradation
- Gullies
- rainfall
- degradation
- rangeland condition
- rangelands
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordContinuous human population expansion pressure on conservation ecosystems restricts wildlife areas, and necessitates active management. In areas of changing land-use and increasing human-animal…Publication Date 2008
- Loxodonta africana
- Ranging behaviour
- Reaction time
- Cautious behaviour
- Response indicator
- GIS
- national parks
- management
- land use
- conservation
- Africa
- Library Collection RecordConserving African wildlife in human-occupied landscapes requires management intervention that is guided by a mechanistic understanding of how anthropogenic factors influence large-scale ecological…Publication Date 2007
- wildlife
- rainfall
- predation
- competition
- apparent competition
- Non-protected area
- management
- conservation
- grasslands
- eco - tourism
- cattle
- Africa