Abstract:
In semi-arid regions, interactions between
biophysical and socio-economic variables are complex.
Such interactions and their respective variables
significantly alter land use and land cover, degrade
landscape’s structure, and impede the efficacy of the
adopted land management interventions. This scenario
is particularly prevalent in communal land
tenure system or areas managed by a hybrid of traditional
and state led institutions. Hence, this study
sought to investigate the impacts of land use and land
cover changes (LULCCs) on land degradation (LD)
under communal rural districts, and the key drivers of
habitat fragmentation in the Greater Sekhukhune District
Municipality (GSDM), South Africa. The study
used the wet and dry season multi-temporal remotely
sensed image data, key-informant interviews, and
workshop with tribal council to determine the major
drivers of LULCC and LD. Results revealed that
mines and quarries, subsistence and commercial cultivation,
and thicket/dense bush LULCs declined significantly
during the study period. These LULCs mostly
declined in wet season, with loss in vegetation cover
highly prevalent. Specifically, the highest conversions
were from shrub/grassland to bare soil, thicket/
dense bush to shrub/grassland, and shrub/grassland to
residential, respectively. Generally, LULCC affected
vegetation productivity within the study area, with
increased negative NDVI values observed during the
dry season. The findings from key informants and
the tribal council workshop emphasized that soil erosion,
abandonment of cropland, and injudicious land
use (i.e. overgrazing and consequent bush encroachment)
have severely degraded the land. The study also established that the degrading land can be attributed
to the weakening local communal land management
system, particularly the weakening tribal councils.
The study recommends an urgent need for collaborative
(i.e. government, tribal authorities, and land
users) land management through designing relevant
multi-stakeholder LD mitigation measures.
