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Trends in land use and land cover change in the protected and communal areas of the Zambezi Region, Namibia

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An Erratum to this article was published on 23 May 2017

Abstract

Land management decisions have extensively modified land use and land cover in the Zambezi Region. These decisions are influenced by land tenure classifications, legislation, and livelihoods. Land use and land cover change is an important indicator for quantifying the effectiveness of different land management strategies. However, there has been no evidence on whether protected or communal land tenure is more affected by land use and land cover changes in southern Africa and particularly Namibia. Our study attempted to fill this gap by analyzing the relationship between land use and land cover change and land tenure regimes stratified according to protected and communal area in the Zambezi Region. Multi-temporal Landsat TM and ETM+ imagery were used to determine the temporal dynamics of land use and land cover change from 1984 to 2010. The landscape showed distinctive modifications over the study period; broad trends include the increase in forest land after 1991. However, changes were not uniform across the study areas. Two landscape development stages were deduced: (1) 1984–1991 represented high deforestation and gradual increase in shrub land; (2) 1991–2000 and 2000–2010 represented lower deforestation and slower agropastoral expansion. The results further show clear patterns of the dynamics, magnitude, and direction of land use and land cover change by tenure regime. The study concluded that land tenure has a direct impact on land use and land cover, since it may restrict some activities carried out on the land in the Zambezi Region.

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Acknowledgements

Funding for this project was provided by the University of Pretoria and the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry in Namibia. We are also grateful for the financial support from the Southern African Science Service Centre for Climate Change and Adaptive Land Management (SASSCAL) task 033. Any errors are solely the responsibility of the authors and not of the funding agencies. This research complies with the current laws of the Republic of Namibia.

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  1. Namibia University of Science and Technology, Windhoek, Namibia

    Jonathan Mutau Kamwi, Christoph Kaetsch, Friedrich Patric Graz, Paxie Chirwa & Samuel Manda

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  1. Jonathan Mutau Kamwi
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  2. Christoph Kaetsch
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Correspondence to Jonathan Mutau Kamwi.

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An erratum to this article is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10661-017-5985-4.

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Kamwi, J.M., Kaetsch, C., Graz, F.P. et al. Trends in land use and land cover change in the protected and communal areas of the Zambezi Region, Namibia. Environ Monit Assess 189, 242 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-017-5934-2

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