Kudzai Mpakairi

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• PhD Candidate at University of the Western Cape

While the dominance of policies from the Global North has shaped conservation practices, holistic decision‐making is urgently needed to incorporate more local voices, especially in Africa. Effective conservation strategies may be enhanced by incorporating the expertise and resources of the Global North alongside the knowledge, lived experiences, in...

Agriculture remains a critical water resources consumer in arid regions, globally, including southern Africa. The intensity of consumption, however, varies significantly depending on the adopted watering method (i.e., rainfed or irrigated) and agricultural region. Efficient agricultural water management hinges on effectively monitoring Crop Water U...

Understanding animal spatial ecology and habitat preferences is crucial for effective management and conservation strategies in the Anthropocene, an era defined by significant human impact on ecosystems. This chapter examines the factors influencing habitat selection and spatial dynamics of roan antelope within Umfurudzi Recreational Park, using te...

Macrophyte communities encompass a diverse array of aquatic plant species that shape the structure, function, and vitality of freshwater and marine ecosystems. Their contributions span from being primary producers to providing critical habitat, oxygenating water, cycling nutrients, stabilizing sediments, and regulating water quality. These ecologic...

The impact of climate variability and extreme weather events on agricultural productivity in arid environments has become a focal point in contemporary research. Monitoring crop water productivity (CWP) is critical and urgently required especially in the arid regions where agriculture consumes an above-average portion of the available fresh water r...

Effective water resources management and monitoring are essential amid increasing challenges posed by population growth, industrialization, urbanization, and climate change. Earth observation techniques offer promising opportunities to enhance water resources management and support informed decision-making. This study utilizes Landsat-8 OLI and Sen...

Knowledge of the extent and distribution of irrigated and rainfed croplands is critical in providing the necessary baseline data for enhancing agricultural efficiency and making informed policy decisions. Accurately identifying and mapping irrigated and rainfed croplands can hasten the attainment of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 1 and 2, aim...

Our research provides a detailed overview of the progress in remotely sensed fire monitoring techniques, which have been developed and employed for fire occurrence and detection. Our overview is provided from a literature search of English-peer reviewed articles, conference proceedings and scientific book sections published between the periods of 1...

Guided by the Optimum Foraging Theory,the Avoidance Concept, and assuming that the impala Aepyceros melampus melampus defecate purposevely at dung middens, we hypothesized that the impala's dung midden locations do not: (1) follow complete spatial randomness; (2) cluster along park tracks; and (3) cluster along the waterways. Using geolocation data...

This study investigated spatial distribution and effects of Lantana camara invasion on soil properties and vegetation composition in Tugwi-Mukosi Recreational Park. Supervised classification with the Random Forest classifier was used to map L. camara in the park. The study area was stratified into two categories based on soil type and the extent of...

This study examined the integration of two satellite data sets, that is Landsat 7 ETM+ and ALOS PALSAR (Advanced Land Observing Satellite Phased Array type L-band Synthetic Aperture RADAR) in estimating carbon stocks in mopane woodlands of northwestern Zimbabwe. Mopane woodlands cover large spatial extents and provide ecosystem benefits to the rura...

Groundwater-Dependent Ecosystems (GDEs) are under threat from groundwater over-abstraction, which significantly impacts their conservation and sustainable management. Although the socio-economic significance of GDEs is understood, their ecosystem services and ecological significance (e.g., biodiversity hotspots) in arid environments remains underst...

Climate change, land cover change and the over–abstraction of groundwater threaten the existence of Groundwater-Dependent Ecosystems (GDE), despite these environments being regarded as biodiversity hotspots. The vegetation heterogeneity in GDEs requires routine monitoring in order to conserve and preserve the ecosystem services in these environment...

There have been increasing calls to monitor Groundwater-Dependent Ecosystems (GDEs) more effectively, since they are biodiversity hotspots that provide several ecosystem services. The accurate monitoring of GDEs is an indispensable under Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 15, because it promotes the existence of phreatophytes. It is imperative to m...

Biodiversity monitoring and data-management technologies can enhance the protection of persecuted species, such as African elephants (Loxodonta afri-cana), through providing management-relevant information. Implementing these technologies, however, often presents several capacity and resource challenges for field staff in protected areas. In the Mi...

Climate and land use change are anticipated to alter the distribution of wildlife, due to their impact on the quantity and quality of forage availability, water cycle, as well as competition for key resources. Using an ensemble of species distribution models (SDMs), we sought to predict changes in the distribution of the African elephant (Loxodonta...

African elephants ( Loxodonta africana ) utilise corridors to access limited resources, that is forage and water scattered across heterogeneous habitats they roam. The existence of small elephant metapopulations depend on the intactness of these corridors to access the scarce resources. Due to the sedentarisation of the previously nomadic Maasai pe...

The difference in structure and composition of landcover types requires accurate mapping of burned areas for post-fire ecological assessments. Spectral indices for burned area mapping are mostly hard-coded to particular environments. However, the best post-fire spectral index to use for burned area mapping in most unstudied landcover types is not k...

Understanding the environmental drivers that influence the spatial distribution of wildlife is paramount to the conservation of endangered carnivore species. However, presence data on most carnivore species (e.g. cheetah, Acinonyx jubatus) are not readily available to assist conservation efforts. In this study, we used MaxEnt to tease out the key d...

Monitoring ecosystem events such as wildfires with remote sensing is fundamental to natural resources management. However, precisely delineating burned areas with remote sensing remains a challenge for post-fire ecological assessment. Burned area mapping methods with spectral indices are affected by several interferences such as soil background, wa...

When wildfires are controlled, they are integral to the existence of savannah ecosystems and play an intrinsic role in maintaining their structure and function. Ample studies on wildfire detection and severity mapping are available but what remains a challenge is the accurate mapping of burnt areas in heterogenous landscapes. In this study, we test...

The earth is gradually warming from greenhouse gases (GHG) and will likely exceed the 2 °C threshold envisioned by 2050. Species range shifts and extinction are imminent from the temperature increase, especially in human-dominated landscapes. Several regions are projected to become less habitable as a result of heat stress, reduced water availabili...

Climate models project a hot and dry future for Southern Africa. In this research, Maximum Entropy was used to model the extent to which climate change, land cover and distance from water edges may influence current and future distribution of the African skimmer in the mid-Zambezi Valley. Global Biodiversity Information Facility data collected betw...

Forage, water and soil remain critical environmental variables in the distribution of most wildlife species in nearly all protected landscapes. In landscapes where water and forage are scarce and not supplemented, most species succumb to starvation. To avoid animal species succumbing to water induced deaths, waterholes can be put in place to provid...

Understanding the key drivers that influence the potential distribution of herbivore species in changing landscapes has been at the centre of enquiry in wildlife science for many decades. This knowledge is particularly important for keystone species like the African elephant ( Loxodonta africana ) whose population is declining even in conservation...

Understanding the drivers of biological invasions in landscapes is a major goal in invasion ecology. The control of biological invasions has increasingly become critical in the past few decades because invasive species are thought to be a major threat to endemism. In this study, by examining the key variables that influence Acacia mearnsii, we soug...

Owing to the developments that exist in urban landscapes, urban areas experience climates that are different from their surroundings even when in the same climatic region. This is a prominent phenomenon in most urban areas and is commonly known as Surface Urban Heat Island (SUHI). An understanding of some of the drivers of SUHI is imperative for ci...

This study reports our attempt to tease up the drivers of wildland fire as well as wildland fire hotspots for the Zimbabwean component of the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA-TFCA). We used the Getis-Ord (Gi*) to identify wildland fire hotspots as well as MaxEnt to identify the drivers of the wildland fire in the KAZA-TFCA. The...

Climate change is significantly altering biodiversity, socioeconomic and agricultural patterns all over the world. Understanding how climate change will affect the total land area suitable for dairy farming is important for future agricultural decisions. In this study we sought to determine variations in area suitability for dairy farming in Zimbab...

Overlapping interests between humankind and nature have resulted in humans and wildlife interacting. These interactions usually emanate from the absence of fences or hard boundaries to restrict animal movement and when this happens, it results in Human Carnivore Conflict (HCC). People residing in areas adjacent to protected areas are the ones mostl...

The central role of species competition in shaping community structure in ecosystems is well appreciated amongst ecologists. However species competition is a consistently missing variable in Species Distribution Modelling (SDM). This study presents results of our attempt to incorporate species competition in SDMs. We used a suit of predictor variab...

The white-backed vulture (Gyps africanus) is a threatened avian species in the savanna ecosystem. In order to preclude this threat and the associated propensity of white-backed vulture extinction, there is a need to understand the environmental conditions that influence the vultures' population dynamics especially their nesting habits. In this stud...