Identifying land suitable for agricultural land reform using GIS-MCDA in South Africa

Land reform is identified as a key tool in fostering development in South Africa. Twenty years after the advent of democracy in South Africa, the land question remains a critical issue for policy makers. Several frameworks have been put in place by the government to identify land that is strategically located for land reform. However, many of these frameworks are not well aligned and not objective in defining strategically located land for land reform and often lead to unsustainable land use management practices. This has hampered the government’s land reform initiative in promoting agricultural land reform and food security. Accordingly, there is a need to develop a decision support tool that facilitates the identification of strategically located land for land reform. This study proposes the use of geographic information systems (GIS) and multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) to develop a strategically located land index (SLLI) to identify land suitable for agricultural land reform. Participatory workshops and the group analytical hierarchy process were utilised to identify and weigh criteria used in computing the SLLI. The results indicate that land that is suitable for agricultural land reform is scarce, and there are also competing needs on the highly suitable land for agriculture. The study demonstrates that GIS and MCDA are invaluable tools in facilitating evidence-based decision-making for land reform and sustainable land use management practices. The SLLI is not the panacea to land identification; there is also need to appreciate the contested nature of land in South Africa.     

Indicator based approach for monitoring natural resources of village ecosystems: findings from select ecosystems of southern India

Indian village ecosystems are diverse with respect to population pressures, agricultural activities and production, livestock composition, energy sources, economics and infrastructural capabilities. Natural resource degradation is a major global concern and the factors and processes leading to degradation are regional and scale up from the micro levels such as village ecosystems. There is need for integrated multidisciplinary approaches for monitoring the resource status and environmental issues at the decentralized level. This paper presents an approach to assess village ecosystems using a set of key indicators developed and tested across fourteen diverse village ecosystems of the Southern India. The concept of ecosystem services associated with village ecosystems of India has been described and adopted to identify indicators and assess issues and trends. Comparison across villages has been demonstrated and the indicators successfully reflected the key environmental issues at each village level as well as differences across villages. We also report unique cases of stabilized land use and ‘desakota-like’ trends from village ecosystem studied.     

Linking agricultural adaptation strategies,food security and vulnerability: evidence from West Africa

Adaptation strategies to reduce smallholder farmers’ vulnerability to climate variability and seasonality are needed given the frequency of extreme weather events predicted to increase during the next decades in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in West Africa. We explored the linkages between selected agricultural adaptation strategies (crop diversity, soil and water conservation, trees on farm, small ruminants, improved crop varieties, fertilizers), food security, farm household characteristics and farm productivity in three contrasting agro-ecological sites in West Africa (Burkina Faso, Ghana and Senegal). Differences in land area per capita and land productivity largely explained the variation in food security across sites. Based on land size and market orientation, four household types were distinguished (subsistence, diversified, extensive, intensified), with contrasting levels of food security and agricultural adaptation strategies. Income increased steadily with land size, and both income and land productivity increased with degree of market orientation. The adoption of agricultural adaptation strategies was widespread, although the intensity of practice varied across household types. Adaptation strategies improve the food security status of some households, but not all. Some strategies had a significant positive impact on land productivity, while others reduced vulnerability resulting in a more stable cash flow throughout the year. Our results show that for different household types, different adaptation strategies may be ‘climate-smart’. The typology developed in this study gives a good entry point to analyse which practices should be targeted to which type of smallholder farmers, and quantifies the effect of adaptation options on household food security. Subsequently, it will be crucial to empower farmers to access, test and modify these adaptation options, if they were to achieve higher levels of food security.     

Climate change adaptation and cross-sectoral policy coherence in southern Africa

To be effective, climate change adaptation needs to be mainstreamed across multiple sectors and greater policy coherence is essential. Using the cases of Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia, this paper investigates the extent of coherence in national policies across the water and agriculture sectors and to climate change adaptation goals outlined in national development plans. A two-pronged qualitative approach is applied using Qualitative Document Analysis of relevant policies and plans, combined with expert interviews from non-government actors in each country. Findings show that sector policies have differing degrees of coherence on climate change adaptation, currently being strongest in Zambia and weakest in Tanzania. We also identify that sectoral policies remain more coherent in addressing immediate-term disaster management issues of floods and droughts rather than longer-term strategies for climate adaptation. Coherence between sector and climate policies and strategies is strongest when the latter has been more recently developed. However to date, this has largely been achieved by repackaging of existing sectoral policy statements into climate policies drafted by external consultants to meet international reporting needs and not by the establishment of new connections between national sectoral planning processes. For more effective mainstreaming of climate change adaptation, governments need to actively embrace longer-term cross-sectoral planning through cross-Ministerial structures, such as initiated through Zambia’s Interim Climate Change Secretariat, to foster greater policy coherence and integrated adaptation planning.     

Conservation, commercialisation and confusion: harvesting of Ischyrolepis in a coastal forest, South Africa

Harvesting of non-timber forest products is an integral component of rural livelihoods throughout the developing world. At times this is at odds with conservation objectives. Reconciliation of the two requires examination of local level contexts and needs. This paper reports on the harvesting needs for Ischyrolepis by a rural community in South Africa, against the setting that they had recently been prohibited from harvesting by the local conservation officials. Interviews were conducted with conservation officials to understand the reasoning for the prohibition. Local demand for Ischyrolepis was assessed by household surveys, as well as in-depth interviews with traders. The density and size class distribution of Ischyrolepis was determined using transects. The total annual demand for Ischyrolepis was determined to be approximately only 2.7% of the standing crop. The bulk of the annual demand was for small-scale trade, the income from which was a primary source of income for the few harvesters. Very little evidence could be found indicating that harvesting was damaging the resource or its habitat, and local knowledge suggested that the abundance of the species was stimulated by harvesting. Even if market demand were to increase, the size of the shoots required means that less than 20% of the standing crop could be harvested annually. Current regulations around harvesting are in a state of revision, and hence confusion prevails regarding if harvesting is permissible, and if so, under what conditions, which is detrimental to both conservation and livelihoods. Readers should send their comments on this paper to: BhaskarNath@aol.com within 3 months of publication of this issue.     

Perceived stressors of climate vulnerability across scales in the Savannah zone of Ghana: a participatory approach

Smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa are confronted with climatic and non-climatic stressors. Research attention has focused on climatic stressors, such as rainfall variability, with few empirical studies exploring non-climatic stressors and how these interact with climatic stressors at multiple scales to affect food security and livelihoods. This focus on climatic factors restricts understanding of the combinations of stressors that exacerbate the vulnerability of farming households and hampers the development of holistic climate change adaptation policies. This study addresses this particular research gap by adopting a multi-scale approach to understand how climatic and non-climatic stressors vary, and interact, across three spatial scales (household, community and district levels) to influence livelihood vulnerability of smallholder farming households in the Savannah zone of northern Ghana. This study across three case study villages utilises a series of participatory tools including semi-structured interviews, key informant interviews and focus group discussions. The incidence, importance, severity and overall risk indices for stressors are calculated at the household, community, and district levels. Results show that climatic and non-climatic stressors were perceived differently; yet, there were a number of common stressors including lack of money, high cost of farm inputs, erratic rainfall, cattle destruction of crops, limited access to markets and lack of agricultural equipment that crossed all scales. Results indicate that the gender of respondents influenced the perception and severity assessment of stressors on rural livelihoods at the community level. Findings suggest a mismatch between local and district level priorities that have implications for policy and development of agricultural and related livelihoods in rural communities. Ghana’s climate change adaptation policies need to take a more holistic approach that integrates both climatic and non-climatic factors to ensure policy coherence between national climate adaptation plans and District development plans.     

Deforestation in the drylands of Africa: Quantitative modelling approach

This paper has developed a two-sector model of forestry that gives some insights into the interactions of poverty, land tenure insecurity, economic growth, trade and deforestation in the context of the drylands of Africa. Externally, the model results show that the world demand for non-timber forestry products can lead to a win-win situation whereby both trade and environmental sustainability can be promoted. Monopolistic measures to control the supply of these products, for short-term price gains, are harmful economically and environmentally. By contrast, productivity-raising measures have a favourable impact on both the economy and the environment. Internally, the model results show that the growth of the rest of the economy has driven the economic growth of the forestry sector, but at the same time, its environmental degradation. Poverty and land tenure insecurity also contribute to this degradation. Fortunately, policies promoting basic needs satisfaction and property rights security are shown to be effective in mitigating environmental degradation in the forestry sector. The paper results contribute towards a more sustainable exploitation of forestry.Readers should send their comments on this paper to: BhaskarNath@aol.com within 3 months of publication of this issue.     

Deforestation in the drylands of Africa: Quantitative modelling approach

This paper has developed a two-sector model of forestry that gives some insights into the interactions of poverty, land tenure insecurity, economic growth, trade and deforestation in the context of the drylands of Africa. Externally, the model results show that the world demand for non-timber forestry products can lead to a win-win situation whereby both trade and environmental sustainability can be promoted. Monopolistic measures to control the supply of these products, for short-term price gains, are harmful economically and environmentally. By contrast, productivity-raising measures have a favourable impact on both the economy and the environment. Internally, the model results show that the growth of the rest of the economy has driven the economic growth of the forestry sector, but at the same time, its environmental degradation. Poverty and land tenure insecurity also contribute to this degradation. Fortunately, policies promoting basic needs satisfaction and property rights security are shown to be effective in mitigating environmental degradation in the forestry sector. The paper results contribute towards a more sustainable exploitation of forestry.     

Green procurement in South Africa: perspectives on legislative provisions in metropolitan municipalities

This paper sets an objective to analyse legislative provisions for green procurement in South Africa’s metropolitan municipalities in the context of climate change and sustainable development. The main methods for data generation were interviews and document analysis. There were 30 interviews granted by among others, procurement officers, town planners and economic development specialists. In addition, 51 policy documents were retrieved, followed by a keyword search. The keywords were carefully selected and limited to those commonly used in green procurement terminology to include climate change, green procurement, renewable energy, energy efficiency, mitigation, clean technology, carbon footprint, sustainable development and green economy. The findings are that although all the metropolitan municipalities have procurement policies in place, only the City of Cape Town and eThekwini metropolitan have incorporated green procurement strategies into their supply chain management. The City of Cape Town and Nelson Mandela Bay metropolitan municipalities also emerged as the only ones with stand-alone green procurement strategies. To this end, the research concludes that legislative provisions mandating green procurement in South African metropolitan municipalities are not entirely lacking, although more work needs to be done to roll this out to cover all the existing metropolitan municipalities.     

Protected areas as vehicles in population development: lessons from rural South Africa

Protected areas in developing countries are increasingly expected to move beyond biodiversity protection so as also to contribute to poverty reduction and the economic development of their surrounding communities. The purpose of this article is to report on the key findings that emerged from the assessment of a poverty alleviation programme at the Golden Gate Highlands National Park in South Africa and the lessons learned from that particular programme. Designed around outcomes analysis as an analytical framework for programme evaluation, a mixed-method approach of semi-structured interviews and focus-group sessions was used to collect data from amongst programme beneficiaries, the park management and members of the park’s advisory board. The findings indicate that although programmes of this kind can indeed impact positively on poverty levels, their direct impacts do however remain limited to a relatively small proportion of households in neighbouring communities. The article concludes that by conceptualising poverty as a multidimensional state of well-being, this allows for the exploration of a much broader range of potential social, cultural and economic benefits available from protected areas.     

Towards deliberative coastal governance: insights from South Africa and the Mississippi Delta

Coastal sustainability is elusive in South Africa and the Mississippi delta. These case studies and convergent literatures demonstrate the merits of reconceptualising coastal management as a transformative practice of deliberative governance. A normative framework is presented that focuses attention on underpinning deliberative outcomes to enable governance actors and networks to build cognitive, democratic, sociopolitical and institutional capacity to transform unsustainable and maladaptive coastal practices. But operationalising such intentions is complex and contested and requires a volte-face in thinking and practice. The South African and Mississippi delta experiences provide insights about how to develop a deliberative praxis of coastal governance based on consideration of the choice of process, timeliness, quality of process, equity and representation, connections to the policy cycle, impact, implementation and institutionalisation.     

Farm residence and reproductive health among boys in rural South Africa

BackgroundFew studies have investigated reproductive health effects of contemporary agricultural pesticides in boys.ObjectivesTo determine the association between pesticide exposure and reproductive health of boys.MethodsWe conducted a cross-sectional study in rural South Africa of boys living on and off farms. The study included a questionnaire (demographics, general and reproductive health, phyto-estrogen intake, residential history, pesticide exposures, exposures during pregnancy); and a physical examination that included sexual maturity development ratings; testicular volume; height, weight, body mass index; and sex hormone concentrations.ResultsAmong the 269 boys recruited into the study, 177 (65.8%) were categorized as farm (high pesticide exposures) and 98 (34.2%) as non-farm residents (lower pesticide exposures). Median ages of the two groups were 11.3 vs 12.0 years, respectively (p < 0.05). After controlling for confounders that included socioeconomic status, farm boys were shorter (regression coefficient (RC) = − 3.42 cm; 95% confidence interval (CI): − 6.38 to − 0.45 cm) and weighed less (RC = − 2.26 kg; CI: − 4.44 to − 0.75 kg). The farm boys also had lower serum lutenizing hormone (RC = − 0.28 IU/L; CI: − 0.48 to − 0.08 IU/L), but higher serum oestradiol (RC = 8.07 pmol/L; CI: 2.34–13.81 pmol/L) and follicle stimulating hormone (RC = 0.63 IU/L; CI: 0.19–1.08 U/L).ConclusionsOur study provides evidence that farm residence is associated with adverse growth and reproductive health of pubertal boys which may be due to environmental exposures to hormonally active contemporary agricultural pesticides.     

Integrated and adaptive governance of water resources: the case of South Africa

Climate change and its impact on water resources have become a reality in many parts of the world. Uncertainties in water supply as well as the gradual and abrupt change in water availability are increasing. To maintain the sustainability of the water sector, its ability to adapt to unforeseen events needs to increase. Making adaptation an integral part of the governance of water resources will thus be one of the major future challenges for the water sector. This paper focuses on how far Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM), the guiding concept of water management and governance, is able to address these challenges and which additional features would be required for increasing the adaptability of water governance and management. In the empirical part of the paper, South African water legislation and its adaptability to the challenges of climate change is scrutinised. The paper finds that IWRM offers a number of entry points for increased adaptability. However, the IWRM concept should be complemented with features of adaptive governance such as polycentric, redundant and flexible governance structures to be better prepared for unforeseen events. It is concluded that the features of IWRM and adaptive water governance comprise a number of synergies and trade-offs, which play out differently in different combinations and contexts. The paper outlines the need for further empirical research on these trade-offs as well as on the appropriate degree of features such as participation, flexible institutions and redundancy.     

Efficiency of common-pool resource institutions: focusing on water users associations in South Africa

Despite of the promulgation of new water laws post-apartheid by the South African government, some parts of the country are still faced with inequitable, inefficient and inadequate water supply. Water institutions in South Africa and other developing countries are faced with various and multi-faceted challenges that consequently lead to their failure to provide water resources effectively. The evident responsibility of governing water resources in developing countries is commonly played by local and national institutions, using the water sector’s fundamental regulations, policies as well as statutory enactments. This paper draws lessons from the international examples to analyse the motivation for WUAs and the challenges they are faced with. The method for data generation used in this article is document analysis. A narrative approach using the literature and document analysis provided an insight into the economic and institutional history of WUAs. The analytical framework to study path dependency and power relations in connection with WUAs in South Africa was drawn from a literature review of transition studies and NIE. This study established that the current and future decisions made by the WUAs in South Africa are not entirely independent of those made in the past under irrigation boards. The study argues that establishing WUAs cannot automatically substitute for the domains of relations which existed within irrigation boards.     

Combating dye pollution using cocoa pod husks: a sustainable approach

The adsorptive potential of activated carbon prepared by chemical activation of Cocoa pod husk (CPHAA) to remove Congo red (CR) dye from its aqueous solution was investigated in this study. CPHAA was characterised using Energy Dispersive X-Ray, Scanning Electron Micrograph and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy techniques. The effects of contact time, initial dye concentration, pH and solution temperature were studied. Equilibrium data were fitted to Langmuir, Freundlich, Temkin and Dubinin–Radushkevich isotherm models. The equilibrium data were best represented by Langmuir isotherm model, with maximum monolayer adsorption capacity of 43.67 mg/g. The kinetic data were fitted to Pseudo-first-order, Pseudo-second-order, Elovich and Intraparticle diffusion models; the pseudo-second-order kinetic model provided the best correlation. Thermodynamic parameters such as standard enthalpy (ΔH^o), standard entropy (ΔS^o) and standard free energy (ΔG^o) were evaluated. The thermodynamic study showed that the process is endothermic, spontaneous and feasible. The mean free energy of adsorption shows that the mechanism is by physisorption. CPHAA was found to be an effective adsorbent for the removal of CR dye from aqueous solution.     

Evaluation of the usefulness of bird feathers as a non-destructive biomonitoring tool for organic pollutants: a comparative and meta-analytical approach

In this study, we investigated whether bird feathers can be used as a non-destructive biomonitor for organic pollutants. We analysed the outermost tail feathers of 8 terrestrial and aquatic bird species from Belgium (8 species, n=108) for polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) and organochlorine pesticides (OCPs). Every compound class could be quantified in one single tail feather of the birds under study (sum PCBs ranging from 5.5 to 510 ng/g feather, sum PBDEs from 0.33 to 53 ng/g feather, sum DDTs from 1.5 to 730 ng/g feather), except for PBDEs in feathers of the common moorhen (Gallinula chloropus). Further, we calculated Pearson correlations between concentrations of organic pollutants in feathers and concentrations in corresponding muscle or liver tissue from the birds. Correlations were found significant in half of the cases of the terrestrial species, but were found not significant for the aquatic species, with the exception of a significant correlation of sum PCBs in the common moorhen. Only for the common buzzard (Buteo buteo) (n=43) all correlations were found significant (0.32相似文献   

Ranking Canadian universities: a quantitative approach for sustainability assessment using uD-SiM

This paper introduces a model that enables a comparison between universities based on sustainability indicators related to environmental, economic, social and educational aspects. The proposed model is based on a driving force-pressure-state-exposure-effect-action (DPSEEA) framework and is called uncertainty-based DPSEEA-Sustainability index Model (uD-SiM). The uD-SiM applies the concept of causality and develops sustainability index (SI), which is an outcome of nonlinear relationships of sustainability indicators in different stages of DPSEEA. In this paper, this fuzzy-based multi-criteria decision-making model is used to evaluate the sustainability of five Canadian universities, namely the University of British Columbia, the University of Toronto, the University of Alberta, the McGill University and the Memorial University. The final ranking results are compared with the Green report card ranking for 2010 through SI. The application of various actions and strategies that can be applied to different stages of the framework to improve sustainability in higher education institutions is also discussed.     

Social vulnerability to climate change: a review of concepts and evidence

Regional Environmental Change - This article provides a review of recent scientific literature on social vulnerability to climate change, aiming to determine which social and demographic groups,...     

Climate change,multiple stressors and human vulnerability: a systematic review

We systematically reviewed current climate change literature in order to examine how multiple processes that affect human vulnerability have been studied. Of the 125 reviewed articles, 79 % were published after 2009. There are numerous concepts that point out to stressors other than climate change that were used in reviewed studies. These different concepts were used interchangeably, and they illustrate processes that act on different scales. Most widely used concepts included non-climatic (40 % of the articles), multiple stressors (38 %) and other factors (37 %). About 75 % of the studies either acknowledged or carefully analyzed the social and environmental context in which vulnerability is experienced. One-third of the studies recognized climate change-related stressors as the most important, one-third argued that stressors other than climate are more important, and the rest of the studies did not analyze the relative importance of the different processes. Interactions between different stressors were mentioned in 76 % and analyzed explicitly in 28 % of the articles. Our review shows that there are studies that analyze the social context of vulnerability within climate change-related literature and this literature is rapidly expanding. Reviewed studies point out that there are multiple interacting stressors, whose interlinkages need to be carefully analyzed and targeted by policies, which integrate adaptation to climate change and other stressors. In conclusion, we suggest that future studies should include analytical frameworks that reflect dissimilarities between different types of stressors, methodological triangulation to identify key stressors and analysis of interactions between multiple stressors across different scales.