- Title
- Multi-temporal analysis of changes in vegetation distribution in the Great Fish River Game Reserve, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa :1982-2012
- Creator
- Dikweni, Sipho
- Subject
- Climatic changes -- South Africa|zEastern Cape Biodiversity conservation
- Date
- 2018
- Type
- Thesis
- Type
- Masters
- Type
- MSc
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10353/10511
- Identifier
- vital:35550
- Description
- Great Fish River Game Reserve plays an important role in curtailing the ever-increasing biodiversity declines in Eastern Cape Province and South Africa at large. Though this area plays an important role in the conservation of natural biodiversity, it has been observed that it is undergoing considerable changes with regards to conditions and composition of vegetation cover. These changes signal a decline in the capacity of the Great Fish River Game Reserve to support wildlife population. In this study, remote sensing was used to investigate multi-temporal changes in vegetation distribution in this particular reserve over a period of 30 years (1982-2012). A supervised classification was carried out to classify four Landsat images including; Landsat TM, Landsat ETM and Landsat 8 imagery of 1984, 1992, 2002 and 2013 respectively to map historical and present vegetation conditions and distribution in the Great Fish River Game Reserve. A comparative examination of the classified images showed that there were significant changes in the composition and structure of vegetation with much of the palatable plant species being driven to extinction. The results showed that herbivory pressure inconjuction with climate variability has subsequently resulted in a decrease of the supporting potential of the reserve to sustain wildlife due to mortality of the most preferred plant species and abundant increase of non-palatable plant species. As grazing and browsing intensity increased, there was a decline in regenerative potential of the selected plant species by wild herbivores and successful increase in abundance of the non-palatable plant species. The results of this investigation suggest that the current increase in wildlife population will facilitate the deterioration of habitat condition to support wildlife up to the point of no recovery.
- Format
- 143 leaves
- Format
- Publisher
- University of Fort Hare
- Publisher
- Faculty of Science and Agriculture
- Language
- English
- Rights
- University of Fort Hare
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UFH Department of GIS & Remote Sensing
| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details Download | SOURCE1 | MSc (GIS & Remote Sensing) DIKWENI - May 2018.pdf | 2 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |