In Depth Coverage

Local territorial system study for the identification of pastoral customary institution dynamics model through the help of participatory community interpretation of remote sensed data and GIS analysis in Southern Ethiopia

Pastoral communities make reference to a wide territory, accessing it on the basis of a large set of elements, including physical as well as socio-political elements. Each pastoral community has developed arrangements that regulate access to the natural resources on which its livelihood is based, and has established territorial patterns for the use of the natural resources. These can thus be seen as ‘local territorial systems’: a network of social relations of actors that share territorial resources, characterized by the flexibility of their boundaries (that are in constant movement, across the seasons and across the years), and by the concurrent use of the resources. This project is aimed at identifying not only natural resources coverage but also dynamics that are behind their access, their control and natural movement network of livestock and community dictated by a complex social structure that survived in the centuries.

All this elements can be captured in their temporal and spatial dimension through the help of a comprehensive system that conciliate remote sensed data analysis with a structured plan of community interviews. Land analysis will be carried out trying to respect the specific angle of traditional institutions culture. This can be seen as a pilot tool which can allow creating a connection between two different knowledge systems. In this context land analysis will be carried out in an integrated way comparing international classification standard with customary ones. The analysis will be undertaken both with participatory exercise by interpretation of high resolution images (2,5 m SPOT 5 imagery) with the local communities and in a standard way with on screen visual interpretation carried out by a remote sensing expert user. Data set field interpretation will allow to take advantage of local knowledge, from the other hand standard interpretation will be conducted in a rigorous way. The creation of cartographic support to be the based of community interview will allow to reconstruct also mobility patterns network seen as the foundation of pressure model over the natural resources. Result of the analysis will be then integrated with the other information gathered from an interview protocol with local territorial system communities, since the real importance of the land use and land cover is tremendously conditioned by the actual socio-economical utilization.

All data acquired will be processed, elaborated with the help of an Italy housed team in order to create a decision supporting system focused on the integration of three basic scales of reference:

That of a single pastoral encampment, with the identification of the land use categories, for the different types of pastoral and non pastoral activities (including an evaluation of opportunistic and structural agriculture

That of the ordinary dry-wet season cycle, with the identification of seasonal pastures and water sources, as well as the ‘special purpose’ grazing reserves and

That of the prolonged drought cycles, with the identification of the fall-back zones and of the critical resource areas.

Special attention will be paid to the trade-offs arising from the objectives pursued through different patterns in the resources use, to the longer term trends in the observed relation between communities and territories, to the concurrent use of the same resources of different communities and to the modalities of regulation (including conflicts) of these relations.

• Link With Climate Change

  Open

  Pastoralist communities and their connected livelihood structure can be regarded as one of the most treated social system of east Africa being strictly dependent on grazing rangeland resources. From their part vegetation cover and habitat status are seasonal in character. Most part of this seasonality derives from environmental parameters, among which, of primary importance, rainfall and temperature. Prolonged drought, for example, can seriously affect pastoral dynamics, bringing instability to the ordinary dry-wet cycle movement and forcing communities to look for fall back areas, a trip that can cover very long distances. In this context climate change might become a serious treat for pastoral communities and a factor which is capable to change delicate balance of status, pressure and response of a pastoral territorial system.

  The current project aims, among other objectives, at reinforcing and validating results of an analysis carried out on change detection of NR over a temporal series of 20 years with Landsat data sets.
   

• Objectives

  Open

  Use of participatory mapping tools has been largely tested in last years. It has demonstrated to be capable of developing a deeper understanding of indigenous claims to land, and to design resource management plans compatible with local practices and land-use norms. Planning and management of resources can play a key role for sustainable development of pastoral system. Many development approaches have been experienced in the area in past years with the conviction that acting was better than exploring theories. After important ecosystem started suffering consequences (as a lost of resiliency for instance) due to poorly planned operative interventions, a better understanding on how territorial resources were interrelated each other was felt as a principal need before action. GIS techniques, and remote sensed analysis can help in accessing primary problems between people and their resources. The creation of a pastoral Decision Support System will help to sustain planning processes and decision making. The main purpose of the DSS is to provide reference scenarios of NR development and their best allocation to prevent or mitigate possible conflicts over resources. 

  Specific objectives:

  • Help local government and major agencies, to better understand the base for such decisions and therefore justifying the rationality of the pastoral management system.
  • Undertake a baseline to better assess needs and natural resources related problems of local communities in Myio and Moyale woreda through the help of high resolution imagery.
  • Organized a pastoral decision support system base on GIS data acquired with both participatory and remote sensed techniques.
  • Share and disseminate the results in terms of management options or thematic maps as a out-put of the Decision Support System. Operational decision will be based on temporary situations such as land reclamation and permission or exclusion of livestock from a defined rangeland area/water source for a limited time.
  • Train local authorities and decision makers on updating and maintenance for the DSS and follow up for the IT hand-over.

• Work plan

  Open
  • Remote sensed data acquisition:
    SPOT 5 imagery, thanks to the high resolution sensor can ensure a good land cover land use interpretation analysis and at the same time having an appropriate quality definition for cartographic supports.
  • Cartographic support preparation:
    Data set will be enhanced, basically threaten both for participatory exercises and for interpretation analysis.
  • Stake-holders analysis for the pastoral system:
    in order to organize focus group interviews at customary administration unit level
  • Field mission for pastoral data capturing and stakeholder organization:
    this will be done in collaboration with a social promoter, a natural resource officer, GIS expert and local communities. In the same time a problems analysis will be conducted and related decision formulated to be supported by a Decision Support System (DSS).
  • Options formalization:
    for each decision will be selected the input data and the output format. In this phase results of analysis will be crosschecked with the supplementary use of external source of data (governmental databases, results from other researches for developing support, etc.).
  • Option and best practices definition:
    the local stakeholders will be supported by the project in identifying the different planning and management options with our Italian consultant partner Aedit Srl facilitation for the technical realization of software tools.
  • LCLU interpretation:
    operated by University of Rome (UNIROMA3)
  • DSS analysis:
    Data acquired both from pastoral data and from standard interpretation will be availed for elaborations that will be carried out in Italy. The results will be validated on field and availed among partners.
  • IT hand-over:
    a technical support for the utilization of the software facilities will be provided for data upload/entry, visualization and download and organized in form of training. Calendar of program activities will be discussed, and seminars for different partners will be scheduled, taking in account specific needs and roles.

• Schedule

  Open

  Prelimiary project activities (planning, partner organization, ect.) have been carried ount in the month of July 2009. Participatory exercises are expected to be carried out in the middle of August, land cover and land use analysis will start in September, operated by University of Rome, Uniroma3. Analysis will be conducted in the month of October and followed by validation in the field immediately after. Training and decision support system hand over to local authorities is scheduled for November 2009.
  

• Technical and Scientific Approach & Methods Proposed

  Open

  The set of data to be integrated into the DSS concern various elements (ecological, technical, economical/financial and political elements) that are interrelated. This action will focus on integration of the information on state of NR and the inclusion of the information set produced on participatory mapping of natural resources. Land use land cover analysis will be conducted from the same data set in in the same study areas by using two different approaches: the participatory one based on cartographic supports and the analytical based on spectral study of SPOT 5 imagery.

  The DB structure for participatory interpretation data collection is already set. Vector file prototype have been already discussed together with relevé forms and attribute tables to be joined. Creation of cartographic support will follow shortly. Features highlighted in the supports will be then digitalized and provided in digital format for further elaboration.

  The interpretation of SPOT 5 will be undertaken by our partner University of Rome UNIROMA3. A segmentation software based on spectral analysis of true color will be used to define similar texture polygons. All areas will be then visually interpreted, classified and in case clustered in bigger classes.

  Legend and classification system will be compared in order to acquire better understanding on local knowledge. The proposed legend for the standard analysis will be Humid grassland/Bush, Woodland, Bush and Shrubs, Woodland to shrub land, Human settlements and highly degraded areas, Eroded bush land. The traditional classification will be based on traditional Borana zones and soil type like Koticha, Wayama, Dire, Gamoie. Subsequent analysis will be conducted following a geo-statistical approach (see “Use of Satellite imagery and GIS solution”)

• Results

  Open

  Expected results are:

  • exhaustive and detailed thematic maps of pastoral resources in the study area.
  • Digitalized vector data that will include land use and land cover carried out at 1:30,000 1:50,000 scale with both traditional and international standard references.
  • Maps production in digital and paper copy will describe spatial distribution of pre-existent infrastructures, natural resources, migration routes for communities and livestock, water inventories.

  Customary administrative boundaries related to pastoral associations will be also included into the vector data set. Land demarcation (despite their seasonality and flexibility in time, smaller administrative Borana subdivisions are fixed and very well known by local people) is found to be the first step to attribute value to a place and to allow its study. For that reason having traditional boundaries inserted into a GIS environment could be a great achievement since Pastoral system have been largely studied in past years but not in this area by far, nor with a geo-topological approach.

  Thematic maps will be however intermediate results and they shouldn’t be misleaded as a final output. From data displayed the creation of computed algorithms and spatial analysis based on geo-statistical principle (as distance from grazing and water resources, time to destination and climate change) will allow the computing of suitability maps and scenario. This main output that will be handed over to local authorities after a revalidation in the field and training sets, is supposed to drive future intervention in the area.

• Deliverables

  Open

  All primary digitized products and intermediate results will be delivered in digital format. The dataset will be also uploaded in the website server of the project.

• Use of Satellite Imagery and GIS Solutions

  Open

  Main use of SPOT 5 imagery will be land cover and land use interpretation work. Images will be enhanced with spatial filter in order to help specific users for the recognition of land cover and land use classes with emphasis in agriculture and rangeland areas. For the specific use functional for participatory exercises of interpretation the images will be treated for their utilization as a cartographic support for communities. The whole study area will be represented as a mosaic of A1 format supports with a claimed scale of 1:30,000. Main features will be added to the true color composites to highlight infrastructure elements like roads, known water points, villages and markets and assist local people in easily identify their territory. Cartographic supports will be laminated before the field mission and paired with transparent sheets for visual interpretation basement. The transparent sheets with geo-referenced demarcations will be then brought to the LVIA GIS unit for treatment and digital data acquisition. Data entry method will be either on screen, with visual approach over the SPOT imagery, or assisted with a mechanized scanned system aimed at raster acquisition and raster to vector conversion later on. Intermediate results will be subsequently analyzed with main spatial analyst tools and spatial interpolation.

• Local Actions

  Open

  Cartographic supports and thematic maps will be shared with local communities and therefore validated. A workshop will be organized to disseminate intermediate and final results with local communities, local authorities and consortium members of the project. As mentioned in the work plan related to the decision support system, a follow-up training will be also organized and the information technology handover monitored by LVIA and partners.

• Region Name

  Open
  Borana

• Partners involved in project

  Open
  USAID, CARE International, Aedit S.r.l., UNIROMA3 University of ROME