Change and Adaptation in Southern Africa: Climate Variability and
Land System Dynamics of the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area
An interdisciplinary project studying how communities and their households, land use, and climate interact to create or mitigate vulnerability in the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Area of Southern Africa |
OBJECTIVE:
We aim to facilitate a broader understanding of how livelihoods, land use and its history, and the environment are changing in this region. To accomplish this, funded by a U.S. National Science Foundation grant (#1560700), we are collaborating with partner organizations and team members from the U.S., Botswana, Zambia, and Namibia. The main goal of this project will be to determine leverage points in a conceptual framework that might mitigate how land-use decisions and land-cover change affect vulnerability in the face of uncertainty. METHODS AND IMPACT:
Combining household surveys, remote sensing of vegetation and land use, and innovative modeling, the key leverage points identified will help craft interventions to mitigate different sources of household vulnerability. Our team has developed a conceptual model of how adaptive capacity, exposure to climate variability, and sensitivity to changes in land use might combine to affect household vulnerability. An integrated, quantitative modeling framework will be used to evaluate the strength of this framework and test which of the aspects of the framework are important to support sustainable communities in the KAZA transfrontier conservation area and beyond. |
The Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA-TFCA)
Research Overview
This research project is investigating the associations between vulnerability, natural resource use, and climate variability in Southern Africa. The primary outcomes of this work will be a quantitative assessment of how climate, institutions, and land-use affect household and community vulnerability, and identify potential leverage points where changes in adaptive capacity will reduce vulnerability. This interdisciplinary study will expand knowledge of how feedbacks from human-environment interactions affect vulnerability in a region characterized by increasing environmental uncertainty. Project findings will also advance the study of land systems, especially in dryland environments. In addition, there will be an explicit focus on educational and research capacity building in the study region, fostering collaboration between US and African institutions and providing a strong foundation for interdisciplinary education and training of American and African undergraduate and graduate students. Ultimately the work will promote locally-based collaborative ties with national and international partners to address issues of land and resource stewardship, and will have a direct bearing on human wellbeing.
To understand the relationship between vulnerability, resource use and climate variability, this research adapts a framework with three main components: exposure to environmental and climatic change, the degree of sensitivity to which a system is susceptible to these exposure components, and adaptive capacity which is a system’s ability to adjust, modify, or change its characteristics in response to shocks or stress. The investigators will use this framework together with analyses of climate variability and land cover change across the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area in Southern Africa. The region is the largest internationally-managed, terrestrial conservation area in the world. By examining interactions among climate variability, resource use, and household vulnerability, this study will determine if, and at what spatial scale land-use decisions are best detected on the landscape. The main goals are to: 1) identify socio-ecological conditions and patterns that affect household and community vulnerability as conceptualized by the combination of exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity, and 2) determine leverage points in that framework that might mitigate how land-use decisions and land-cover change affect vulnerability. To achieve these goals, the investigators will combine household surveys and participatory mapping to characterize how indicators of vulnerability relate to land use and reliance on natural resources with interlinking factors shaping smallholders' land-use decisions. These will include aspects of climate variability, market factors, government policy and subsidies, culture and ethnicity, and the presence and intervention of NGOs. These data will be integrated with remotely sensed data to compare trajectories of LULCC with underlying socioecological drivers. An integrated, quantitative modeling framework is proposed to evaluate the strength of hypothesized associations between aspects of exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. This study will advance the understanding of vulnerability, will test a theoretical model of how socio-ecological factors relate to vulnerability, and will identify how vulnerability influences and is affected by socio-economic and biophysical drivers at multiple scales.
To understand the relationship between vulnerability, resource use and climate variability, this research adapts a framework with three main components: exposure to environmental and climatic change, the degree of sensitivity to which a system is susceptible to these exposure components, and adaptive capacity which is a system’s ability to adjust, modify, or change its characteristics in response to shocks or stress. The investigators will use this framework together with analyses of climate variability and land cover change across the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area in Southern Africa. The region is the largest internationally-managed, terrestrial conservation area in the world. By examining interactions among climate variability, resource use, and household vulnerability, this study will determine if, and at what spatial scale land-use decisions are best detected on the landscape. The main goals are to: 1) identify socio-ecological conditions and patterns that affect household and community vulnerability as conceptualized by the combination of exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity, and 2) determine leverage points in that framework that might mitigate how land-use decisions and land-cover change affect vulnerability. To achieve these goals, the investigators will combine household surveys and participatory mapping to characterize how indicators of vulnerability relate to land use and reliance on natural resources with interlinking factors shaping smallholders' land-use decisions. These will include aspects of climate variability, market factors, government policy and subsidies, culture and ethnicity, and the presence and intervention of NGOs. These data will be integrated with remotely sensed data to compare trajectories of LULCC with underlying socioecological drivers. An integrated, quantitative modeling framework is proposed to evaluate the strength of hypothesized associations between aspects of exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. This study will advance the understanding of vulnerability, will test a theoretical model of how socio-ecological factors relate to vulnerability, and will identify how vulnerability influences and is affected by socio-economic and biophysical drivers at multiple scales.
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Number (#1560700 )
