Land degradation mapping for modelling of ecosystem benefit flows in the Inkomati catchment using remote sensing.

Abstract

Land degradation is of great concern in South Africa particularly in the Inkomati catchment. Here a mosaic of different land use types such as plantation agriculture, subsistence farming, irrigated commercial farming, rural and urban settlements, as well as nature conservation affect the natural ecosystems in different ways and magnitudes. The National Land Cover (NLC2000) project mapped degraded areas in the catchment, but the results lack a differentiation of magnitude of degradation. For modelling of benefit flows from ecosystems a distinction of areas that are heavily degraded in contrast to only slightly affected areas is necessary. Therefore within a research project of the CSIR a method shall be developed to refine the degradation information of the NLC2000. Preliminary results using remote sensing derived albedo data are presented. The result will be used for modelling ecosystem benefits and their flows, with degraded areas playing an obvious role in defining ecosystems benefits