Impacts of Wildlife Artificial Water Provisioning in an African Savannah Ecosystem: A Spatiotemporal Analysis

Morati Mpalo (), Lenyeletse Vincent Basupi and Gizaw Mengistu Tsidu
Additional contact information
Morati Mpalo: Department of Earth and Environmental Science, Botswana International University of Science and Technology, Private Bag 16, Palapye, Botswana
Lenyeletse Vincent Basupi: Department of Earth and Environmental Science, Botswana International University of Science and Technology, Private Bag 16, Palapye, Botswana
Gizaw Mengistu Tsidu: Department of Earth and Environmental Science, Botswana International University of Science and Technology, Private Bag 16, Palapye, Botswana

Land, 2024, vol. 13, issue 5, 1-19

Abstract: The use of artificial water points for wildlife in African savannah ecosystems has been widely criticised for affecting the distribution of wildlife and initiating changes in the heterogeneity of natural landscapes. We examined the spatiotemporal variations in the landscape before and after the installation of an artificial water point by integrating the analysis of vegetation and soil spectral response patterns with a supervised learning random forest model between 2002 and 2022 in Chobe Enclave, Northern Botswana. Our results revealed that the study area is characterised by animal species such as Equus quagga , Aepyceros melampus , and Loxodonta africana . The findings also showed that the main vegetation species in the study area landscape include Combretum elaeagnoides , Vachellia luederitzii , and Combretum hereroense . The artificial water point induced disturbances on a drought-vulnerable landscape which affected vegetation heterogeneity by degrading the historically dominant vegetation cover types such as Colophospermum mopane , Dichrostachys cinerea , and Cynodon dactylon . The immediate years following the artificial water point installation demonstrated the highest spectral response patterns by vegetation and soil features attributed to intense landscape disturbances due to abrupt high-density aggregation of wildlife around the water point. Landscapes were strongly homogenised in later years (2022), as shown by overly overlapping spectral patterns owing to an increase in dead plant-based material and senescent foliage due to vegetation toppling and trampling. The landscape disturbances disproportionately affected mopane-dominated woodlands compared to other vegetation species as indicated by statistically significant land cover change obtained from a random forest classification. The woodlands declined significantly ( p < 0.05) within 0–0.5 km, 0.5–1 km, 1–5 km, and 5–10 km distances after the installation of the water point. The results of this study indicate that continuous nonstrategic and uninformed use of artificial water points for wildlife will trigger ecological alterations in savannah ecosystems.

Keywords: artificial water point; botswana; landsat; random forest; spectral response pattern; vegetation heterogeneity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/13/5/690/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/13/5/690/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:13:y:2024:i:5:p:690-:d:1394680

Access Statistics for this article

Land is currently edited by Ms. Carol Ma

More articles in Land from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().