Abstract:
The only ecosystem that is best suited to accommodate livestock in Africa is the
Savanna ecosystem. The livestock can be raised well in the savanna ecosystem due
to the availability of enough grass and trees. However, there has been an expansion
in indigenous woody plant species cover, density, and biomass in the savanna
ecosystem. Therefore, with an increase in woody cover, also known as bush
encroachment; which is globally, threatening grazing resource availability in the
Savanna. The study aim was to assess bush encroachment and its potential drivers
in selected locations of the Limpopo province, between 2001 and 2018 time periods.
The objectives of this study are to highlight areas of bush encroachment using
existing remote sensing derived tree cover product over a period between 2001 and
2018 in the Limpopo province; and to determine environmental and socio-economic
factors that influence bush encroachment in the Limpopo province. The tree cover
change dataset was acquired from the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research
(CSIR), and was used to asses bush encroachment. The logistic regression was
used to determine which environmental and socio-economic variables influence bush
encroachment. When implementing logistic regression to understand drivers of bush
encroachment, three scenarios were decided, i) environmental variables only, ii)
socioeconomic variables only and iii) environmental and socio-economic data
combined. The results of the study show that there has been an increase of bush
encroachment over the past years in the Limpopo province. Environmental variables
such as temperature minimum, temperature mean and bulk density were found to
significantly influence bush encroachment. Similarly, socio-economic variables such
as population density and annual income distributions such as household income
with no income; income above poverty line; income below average income; average
income; and middle average income were found to be significant. Therefore, the
study used the applications of remote sensing to assess bush encroachment in the
Limpopo province.
