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GIS and natural resource management : prospect and problems
Kanyati Communal Lands, Zimbabwe
| Village |
Crop damage by wildlife (1993-98) |
| Agritex/WWF data |
Campfire Data |
| Elephants |
Other |
tota |
| Chebere |
59 |
3 |
62 |
46 |
| Chitete |
0 |
10 |
10 |
6 |
| Hurenje |
279 |
14 |
293 |
293 |
| Hwamira |
19 |
14 |
33 |
24 |
| Kadziru |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| Kanyati |
5 |
0 |
5 |
0 |
| Kemangwandi |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| Makande |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| Nyadara |
1 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
| Nyajena |
61 |
2 |
63 |
64 |
Application F. Land use plan of 1992 and actual land use in 1992 and 1999
A final application was developed to compare (i) the land use of 1992, (ii) the land use as proposed in
a plan of 1992 and (iii) the actual situation seven years later. This was done for Makande village for
which information on the 1999 land use situation was available (Sadiki, 2000). In the land use plan,
land allocated to grazing is divided in paddocks. In 1999, four large paddocks had been fenced. These
paddocks are used for grazing in the wet season. Figure 5 shows that cropland expanded at the expense
of grazing land from 1992 to 1999, but not exactly according to the plan of 1992. It is likely that the
fencing of grazing land reduced further expansion of cropland into grazing land. Residential areas
were scattered in 1999, probably similar to the situation in 1992, while the land use plan proposed
consolidation of residential areas.
6. Discussion
The applications shown in the previous sections show that a GIS-based information system makes it
possible to visualize and make transparent the variation of the magnitude of natural resource
management problems between spatial units, in this case villages. Ranking the villages on the basis of
some of the identified problems shows, for example, that the village of Nyajena is relatively worse of
than other villages in terms of the problems of access to water for domestic use; overgrazing; and crop
damage by wildlife. Although the selected indicators do not give a comprehensive overview of the
problems, a more complete set of indicators has the potential to support decisions on the allocation of
resources between the villages. No information was obtained on the actual spending of public
resources in the various villages.
In addition to support decisions on spatial resource allocation, the developed GIS applications have the
potential to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness and the implementation of various natural resource
management plans, e.g. planned locations of boreholes for domestic use as well a for livestock; land
use plans. Finally, the applications show that information from different sources, e.g. location of
residential areas and locations of water points, can be related and integrated.
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