integrated modeling of land use and climate change impacts on multiscale ecosystems of central PDF
Preview integrated modeling of land use and climate change impacts on multiscale ecosystems of central
UUnniivveerrssiittyy ooff MMaassssaacchhuusseettttss AAmmhheerrsstt SScchhoollaarrWWoorrkkss@@UUMMaassss AAmmhheerrsstt Doctoral Dissertations Dissertations and Theses Summer November 2014 IINNTTEEGGRRAATTEEDD MMOODDEELLIINNGG OOFF LLAANNDD UUSSEE AANNDD CCLLIIMMAATTEE CCHHAANNGGEE IIMMPPAACCTTSS OONN MMUULLTTIISSCCAALLEE EECCOOSSYYSSTTEEMMSS OOFF CCEENNTTRRAALL AAFFRRIICCAANN WWAATTEERRSSHHEEDDSS Simon Nampindo University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2 Part of the Agricultural and Resource Economics Commons, Biodiversity Commons, and the Population Biology Commons RReeccoommmmeennddeedd CCiittaattiioonn Nampindo, Simon, "INTEGRATED MODELING OF LAND USE AND CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS ON MULTISCALE ECOSYSTEMS OF CENTRAL AFRICAN WATERSHEDS" (2014). Doctoral Dissertations. 199. https://doi.org/10.7275/6067129.0 https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/199 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Dissertations and Theses at ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INTEGRATED MODELING OF LAND USE AND CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS ON MULTISCALE ECOSYSTEMS OF CENTRAL AFRICAN WATERSHEDS A Dissertation Presented by SIMON NAMPINDO Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY September 2014 Environmental Conservation © Copyright by Simon Nampindo 2014 All Rights Reserved INTEGRATED MODELING OF LAND USE AND CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS ON MULTISCALE ECOSYSTEMS OF CENTRAL AFRICAN WATERSHEDS A Dissertation Presented by SIMON NAMPINDO Approved as to style and content by: _____________________________________ Timothy O. Randhir, Chair _____________________________________ Curtice Griffin, Member ___________________________________ Steven DeStefano, Member _____________________________________ Stanley Stevens, Member _________________________ Curtice Griffin, Department Head Department of Environmental Conservation DEDICATION I dedicate my dissertation to the memory of my mother ROSE‐MARY KYESUMBE (RIP). ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I wish to express my sincere thanks to my principle advisor, Professor Timothy O. Randhir, who encouraged me all through the development process and write‐up of this doctoral thesis for his sincere and valuable guidance, help and expertise through the length of this work. I greatly acknowledge the valuable advice and contribution of my committee members: Professors Curtice Griffin, Stephen DeStefano, and Stanley Stevens and would like to thank them for accepting to be part of my doctoral committee and all the assistance and encouragement they provided. Special thanks to Prof. Jack Finn for helping with data analysis. I am sincerely grateful to my mentors and colleagues in Wildlife Conservation Society, particularly Dr. Andrew Plumptre, Dr. Alastair McNeilage, Dr. Grace Nangendo, Mr. Deo Kujirankwinja, WCS Eastern DR Congo Program, Mr. Samuel Ayebare, Geoffrey Mwedde, and Dr. Glenn Kumar Bush, and Dr. Nadine Laporte of Woods Hole Research Center. I acknowledge the funding support from the following institutions and individuals: Wildlife Conservation Society, and Beineckie Scholarship Fund, Department of Environmental Conservation, University of Massachusetts who provided the funding for two years of attending classes at UMass. My sincere gratitude to World Wide Fund for Nature – Kathryn Fuller Fellowship, Sydney Byer/Wildlife Conservation Network, Woods Hole Research Center, Falmouth, MA USA, and Institute of Tropical Forest Conservation who funded my doctoral research. Special thanks to Dr. Anton Seimon, University of Appalachian State, Boone, North Carolina who funded my travel and stay at UMass to complete the analyses and dissertation write‐up. Great thanks to my field assistants D. Ninsiima, I. Mpiriirwe, N. Naturinda, B. Katabazi, D. Ahimisibwe, N. Byaruhanga, S.Kamugisha, A. Arinaitwe, C. Tondo, v G. Ndemere who worked with me to conduct the socioeconomic survey data. I also extend my sincere thanks to my UMass colleagues Dennis Babasa, Supagit Vinitpornsawan, Meagan Mezzarano, Malik Morjan, Olga Tsetkova and Dmitry Family for all forms of support. I give my sincere gratitude to my dear wife, Annah Nampindo Agasha, for her constant encouragement, patience and support through all these years. I also give my special thanks to my Daddy Sosan Takozekibi, my sister Jennifer Bafumba for accepting to take care of our children while I was at UMass. I highly appreciate the patience and endurance of my sons Isaac Hills Takozekibi, Daniel Mugisha Mufumbiro, Timothy Kirabo Nampindo Jr. and David Birungi Bagiire while I was away for all three years. vi ABSTRACT INTEGRATED MODELING OF LAND USE AND CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS ON MULTISCALE ECOSYSTEMS OF CENTRAL AFRICAN WATERSHEDS SEPTEMBER 2014 SIMON NAMPINDO, B.S., MAKERERE UNIVERSITY, UGANDA M.S., MAKERERE UNIVERSITY, UGANDA Ph.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor Timothy O. Randhir Assessment and management of ecosystem services demands diverse knowledge concerning the processes that impact the flow of those services. Land use land cover change occurring mainly through deforestation, colonization, expansion of agriculture and unregulated extraction of natural resources are the greatest challenges of the 21st century. The Congo basin, located in central Africa known for supporting a relatively intact forest served by the second longest river in Africa faces many environmental and human‐driven threats. Extraction of timber, minerals, and now oil and gas, if uncontrolled or properly managed, the biodiversity of the basin will diminish very fast. Wildlife species are at the center of major conflicts in the region resulting in increased poaching, bushmeat hunting, and habitat destruction to provide settlement for refugees fleeing the war tone regions. Furthermore, the increase in human population coupled with poverty is likely to exacerbate resource degradation. vii This study undertook to implement an integrated modeling of land use and climate change impacts on multiscale ecosystems of central African watersheds. The study was organized in such a way that implementation of the research was conducted at three varied scales namely the watershed or regional scale, landscape, and household or community scale. At the regional scale, watershed analysis, and hydrological assessment was done using remotely sensed data and modeling of surface runoff and soil loss using Geographical information System, specifically ArcGIS‐based software. At the same time, species distribution modeling using generalized linear models that depend on presence only and/or presence and pseudo absence data were used to develop the species distribution maps. The data used to implement this study was requested for and accessed from various institutions that are involved in the research. Land use land cover map produced by USGS, the carbon map developed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, environmental data from IPCC’s Worldclim, and species inventory data or selected endangered and threatened species was provided mainly by Wildlife Conservation Society, IUCN and Birdlife International among other conservation organizations was used to compile the biodiversity values. The major findings are that ecosystem services for the Congo basin are spatially varied and there are significant differences in their distribution of ecosystem services at a subwatershed level three and six. Equally, the distribution of endangered and threatened species is more concentrated in the central part of the basin and most of these species occur mainly inside protected areas. Poaching and sustained civil wars were the biggest threat to elephant conservation in the region. Improvement in law enforcement, monitoring, and increasing household incomes for communities living adjacent to protected areas would help to reduce the impact of poaching on elephant population dynamics. More so, if wars and poaching are not controlled, the region may witness an elephant population dominated by juveNile and subadult elephants. Climate change did not show immediate direct impacts on viii the elephant population, but thermal and latent heat effects could be occurring. An increase in the suitable habitat by 50 % resulted in an upward trend in elephant population for all age classes suggesting that improvement in habitat management, particularly reducing the fires, encroachment, and degradation due to extraction of resources by local communities and corporate would facilitate elephant population increase and stability. As the national governments pursue REDD+ initiatives, an attempt to pursue this strategy as a single policy approach, would compromise biodiversity, and watershed values. The local communities who depend heavily on these ecosystem services will also become more vulnerable to food insecurity and water scarcity associated with land use change. It is therefore recommended that 1) institutions with the mandate to manage and protect wildlife received greater funding to strengthen law enforcement and monitoring, 2) multiple or coupled policy options be considered in order to maximize ecosystem benefits;3) regional governments should invest in revitalizing the existing meteorological stations and water monitoring centers in order to generate information needed for water resources management 3) poaching needs to be treated as regional, and global security issue and attempts should be made by the international community to reduce the demand for ivory and other wildlife body parts. Lastly, since most of the wild species that exist in the Congo basin are very mobile and move beyond international boundaries, creation of partnerships and research networks need to be promoted. Existing transboundary collaboration initiatives should continue and be supported by the donor community in order to build peace and dram support for wildlife and wild habitat protection. ix
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