Land-cover change in the Kruger to Canyons Biosphere Reserve (1993 - 2006): A first step towards creating a conservation plan for the subregion

Land-cover change in the Kruger to Canyons Biosphere Reserve (1993 - 2006): A first step towards creating a conservation plan for the subregion

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This paper is a first step towards a conservation plan for the Kruger to Canyons Biosphere Reserve (K2C) on the South African Central Lowveld, quantifying the historical land-cover trends (1993 - 2006).During the analysis period, 36% of the biosphere reserve (BR) underwent land-cover change.Settlement areas increased by 39.

7%, mainly in rural areas, becoming denser, particularly along roadways.Human-Impacted Vegetation increased by 6.8% and Intact Vegetation declined by 7.

3%, predominantly around settlement areas, which is offworld drum pads testament to the interdependency between rural communities and the local environment.However, settlement expansion exceeded the rate of rangeland growth; in the long term, this may raise questions for sustainable resource extraction.Similarly, the block losses of intact vegetation are of concern; issues of fragmentation arise, with knock-on effects for ecosystem functioning.

In the economic sector, agriculture increased by 51.9%, while forestry and mining declined by 7.1% and 6.

3%, respectively.The future of these three sectors may also have click here significant repercussions for land-cover change in the BR.The identification of historical drivers, along with the chance that existing trends may continue, will have important implications for biodiversity protection in this landscape.

Applied within a conservation-planning framework, these land-cover data, together with economic and biodiversity data, will help reconcile the spatial requirements of socio-economic development with those of conservation.