Mashare - Woody Vegetation

Abstract

This special volume contains papers on The Future Okavango project. The special volume starts with a series of six overview factsheets describing the whole Okavango basin with regard to its physical-geographical settings, the climate, the hydrology, the land cover and remote sensing analyses, the vegetation, and the relative importance of ecosystem services for stakeholders. The overview is followed by four series of local baseline factsheets providing data and information on the four Core Research Sites of the TFO project, located at Cusseque and Caiundo in Angola, at Mashare in Namibia and at Seronga, in Botswana. The usual sequence of papers deals with the landscape structure, the climate, the soils and soil fertility, the contributions of microbiology, the earth observation viewpoint, the vegetation, the people and always a special presentation of the projects local para-ecologist. The main body of the special volume is dedicated to a series of sixteen research articles. These are again sorted in a series starting with aspects of the landscape, followed by climate, hydrology, the importance of water for ecosystems and livelihoods, agricultural yield assessment, the role of soil bacteria and phosphate and soil fertility, recent land use change, floodplain vegetation, riparian tree species, fire regime, livelihood diversification, household economies, land utilization strategies, and customary water law. In summary, this special volume offers a first integrated compilation of the biophysical setting, the most important processes of change as well as the main interactions between the various stakeholders groups and their environment.