Impact of Climate Change on Vegetative Species Diversity in Masvingo Province, Zimbabwe
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IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON VEGETATIVE SPECIES DIVERSITY IN MASVINGO PROVINCE, ZIMBABWE by LAZARUS CHAPUNGU Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in the subject ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES at the UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA SUPERVISOR: Dr L T NHAMO AUGUST 2017 Dedication To my late mum and dad for giving me my first pen. To my wife Dorcas and our children Makanaka, Rukudzo and Tadadisa for being my source of inspiration. To my brothers and sisters Collins, Patience and Abigail for socio-psychological support. i Declaration I Chapungu Lazarus hereby declare that the dissertation/thesis, which I hereby submit for the degree of PhD Environmental Science at the University of South Africa, is my own work and has not previously been submitted by me for a degree at this or any other institution. I declare that the dissertation /thesis does not contain any written work presented by other persons whether written, pictures, graphs or data or any other information without acknowledging the source. I declare that where words from a written source have been used the words have been paraphrased and referenced and where exact words from a source have been used the words have been placed inside quotation marks and referenced. I declare that I have not copied and pasted any information from the Internet, without specifically acknowledging the source and have inserted appropriate references to these sources in the reference section of the dissertation or thesis. I declare that during my study I adhered to the Research Ethics Policy of the University of South Africa, received ethics approval for the duration of my study prior to the commencement of data gathering, and have not acted outside the approval conditions. I declare that the content of my dissertation/thesis has been submitted through an electronic plagiarism detection program before the final submission for examination. Student signature: ___ __________ Date: __22/08/2017___________ ii Acknowledgements First and foremost, I wish to acknowledge the profound love and provision of strength by the Almighty God who has taken me this far. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the following people and organisations for their invaluable support during the course of this study: Special thanks and foremost appreciation go to Dr. Luxon Nhamo who supervised this project to completion. His consistent guidance and encouragement helped me pull through the journey. I acknowledge with high regard his unwavering support and availability to my cause throughout my studies. A number of individuals and organisations contributed significantly to this research in various ways and I wish to appreciate their efforts. Professor Roberto Cazzolla Gatti from the biological Institute of Tomsk State University, Russia deserves to be mentioned for his contribution on vegetative species diversity assessment methodology. My research assistants, Chenjerai Ziti, Norman Runesu and Phillipa Mamhunga contributed through data collection, entry and cleaning. I appreciate their hard work, diligence and determination throughout the project phases. Further appreciation goes to respondents across Masvingo province for sparing their valuable time and effort to honestly respond to my interviews and questionnaires. I recognise with much appreciation the contribution of the following organisations: Environmental Management Agency, Ministry of Environment, water and climate, Climate change office, Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority. They made this research project a success through information provision and in some cases guidance on practical data collection processes. Furthermore, I am grateful to UNISA bursary department for funding all research activities including data collection, conference attendance and manuscript publication. Also, Great Zimbabwe University research board deserves a special mention due to its financial contribution towards travel costs during the project. Finally, the International Council for Sciences and SANORD are acknowledged for sponsoring my travel to present findings from this project at international conferences in France and Sweden respectively. iii Table of contents Dedication ............................................................................................................................................................ i Declaration ......................................................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................................... iii Table of contents ............................................................................................................................................... iv List of Figures ................................................................................................................................................... vii List of Tables ................................................................................................................................................... viii List of Appendices ............................................................................................................................................. ix List of Acronyms ................................................................................................................................................ x Abstract .............................................................................................................................................................. xi Key words ......................................................................................................................................................... xii Chapter 1 : INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................... 1 1.1. Background of the study .............................................................................................................................. 1 1.2 Statement of the problem ............................................................................................................................ 4 1.3 Aim of the study ........................................................................................................................................... 6 1.4. Specific objectives ........................................................................................................................................ 6 1.5 Research questions ....................................................................................................................................... 6 1.6 Significance of study ..................................................................................................................................... 6 1.7 Study Area ..................................................................................................................................................... 8 1.7.1 Physical environment ............................................................................................................................ 9 1.7.1.1 Climate ............................................................................................................................ 9 1.7.1.2 Topography .................................................................................................................. 10 1.7.1.3 Soils ............................................................................................................................... 11 1.7.1.4 Vegetation .................................................................................................................... 11 1.7.2 Socio-economic profile ........................................................................................................................ 12 1.2.2.1 Population .................................................................................................................... 12 1.7.2.2 Agriculture .................................................................................................................... 13 1.7 Scope of study ............................................................................................................................................ 15 1.7.1 Geographic scope ................................................................................................................................ 15 1.7.2 Conceptual scope ................................................................................................................................. 15 1.7.3 Theoretical scope ................................................................................................................................. 18 1.8 Thesis outline .............................................................................................................................................. 19 Chapter 2 : LITERATURE REVIEW ......................................................................................................... 20 2.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................................ 20 2.2 Global climate change: Concepts and trends ............................................................................................. 20 2.3 Projected global