Institut für Bodenkunde und Standortslehre

A study was conducted at Mshelemle hamlet in Magamba Village, Lushoto District, Tanzania to establish the perception of communities in ranking the importance of benefits derived from tree, shrub and herbaceous lines ecosystem. Four types of vegetation edge ecosystem were examined, namely tree line, herbaceous line, shrubs along road segments and field edge. A cross sectional design, remote sensing and GIS techniques coupled with field survey methods were employed to collect primary data covering an area of 8,700 ha. The collected data was analysed statistically in SPSS and Geographic Information System (GIS) tools. The results show that majority of the road segments were dominated by Acacia meansii, Cyprus cupressas and Grevillea robusta (tree lines); Dovyaris caffa, Mzutwe and CCM flowers (herbaceous plant lines) while Dovyaris caffa was the dominant shrub in most of the studied road segments. Generally majority of the respondents (>90%) were aware on the existence of tree lines ecosystem followed by herbaceous lines (85%). It was observed further that only less than 65% of the respondents reported shrub lines as an important ecosystem. Significant number of the respondents (64.3%) was not aware on the existence of field edge ecosystem. Fuel, timber, poles, property protection, health, conservation of environment, ornamental, decorations, fodders for livestock and plot demarcation were the dominant benefits/functions derived from the studied ecosystem. The results demonstrated further that majority of respondents (over 80%) ranked fuel, timber and poles as important benefit derived from tree lines ecosystem followed by herbaceous (76.6%), shrub lines (43.3%) and field edges (20%). The study observed that among the studied ecosystems, herbaceous lines form an important ecosystem for health which is perceived by the community as air filter to remove smoke, dust, and other pollutants from the air. The study has provided insights on community's valuation of vegetation edge ecosystem for a rural landscape in a developing country. Given the heterogeneity of the landscape in various agro ecological zones of Tanzania, a further study to compare different rural landscapes is recommended.

Several studies in Tanzania focus on land use/cover change (LULC) at coarse scale and without considering the adjoining (interface) landscapes i.e. landscape link community farming systems and forest/nature reserves. In the Eastern Arc Mountains in particular, LULC change that confront the interface between surrounding community landscape and nature reserves and the associated livelihood are not well understood. A study was conducted in the Usambara Mountains, Tanzania to explore the potential impacts of LULC on the interface between Magamba Nature Reserve (MNR) and the landscape of the surrounding community villages. Remote sensing and GIS techniques were used to quantify and analyse the trend in LULC changes over the past 31 years whereby satellite images of 1984, 1995 and 2015 were used. Household surveys, field observations and focus group discussions to 72 households in 3 villages surrounding the nature reserve were employed to capture data on human activities in the interface....

Handheld Optical Sensor was used to measure canopy reflectance at red region (656 nm) and near-infrared region (774 nm) to generate NDVI data for monitoring rice productivity under soil amendment with combinations of fertilizers at two levels of water regime in smallholder Irrigation Scheme, in Lower Moshi, Tanzania. The study was carried out in an experimental design consisted of two irrigation water levels (flooding and system of rice intensification) with multi-nutrients (NPK) and single nutrient (urea) application replicated three times in a randomized complete block design. Flood irrigation water was applied at 7 cm height throughout the growing season, while SRI treatment irrigation water was applied at 4 cm height under alternate wetting and drying conditions. The annual rate of fertilizers applied was 120 kg N/ha, 20 kg P/ha, and 25 kg K/ha. The variety SARO-5 was used in this experiment. Simple correlation coefficient (r) was used to measure the degree of association betwee...

Handheld optical sensor was used to measure canopy reflectance at red region (656 nm) and near-infrared region (774 nm) to generate NDVI data for monitoring rice productivity under soil amendment with combinations of fertilizers at two levels of water regime in smallholder Irrigation Scheme, in Lower Moshi, North Tanzania. The study was carried out in an experimental design which consisted of two irrigation water levels (flooding and system of rice intensification) with multi-nutrients (NPK) and single nutrient (urea) application replicated three times in a randomized complete block design. Flood irrigation water was applied at 7 cm height throughout the growing season, while SRI treatment irrigation water was applied at 4 cm height under alternate wetting and drying conditions. The annual rates of fertilizers applied was 120 kg N/ha, 20 kg P/ha, and 25 kg K/ha. The variety SARO-5 was used in this experiment. Simple correlation coefficient (r) was used to measure the degree of assoc...