DSpace Repository

Land Degradation, Tenure, and Poverty: A Geospatial Analysis of Socio-ecological Systems in Western Kenya

Show simple item record

dc.contributor.author Graw, Valerie
dc.contributor.author Smale, Melinda
dc.contributor.author Menz, Gunter
dc.date.issued 2016
dc.date.accessioned 2021-03-30T09:54:52Z
dc.date.available 2021-03-30T09:54:52Z
dc.identifier.uri http://41.89.96.81:8080/xmlui/handle/123456789/2365
dc.description.abstract Abstract Worldwide, most poor people live in rural areas and depend directly on agricultural land for most of their food, making them vulnerable to environmental changes such as land degradation. This study provides insights into land-population dynamics by focusing on the interlinkages between biophysical and socio-economic perspectives rather than either perspective taken alone. We analyze the interlinkages among socio-economic variables including land tenure and poverty, biophysical preconditions and trends in land productivity among 41 villages in western Kenya. We apply an interdisciplinary framework, combining and modeling panel survey data collected from households in western Kenya with biophysical data and vegetation trends based on remote sensing imagery. Data span the same time period and are linked in a Geographical Information System (GIS). We find that poverty, as well as trigger events such as the global food price crisis of 2008 and post-election crisis of 2007/8, are strongly related to land productivity. Linkages could not be validated between land productivity and land ownership as such, reflecting the fact that the change in ownership of land over the time period studied was not significant in the area of study. Yet links could be observed between productivity change and land fragmentation. Within a coupled humanenvironment system single indicators might have major impact but in combination with others could also trigger processes such as more intense land degradation. Therefore, using Ordinary Least Squares Regression (OLS) a set of indicators, including socio-economic and biophysical variables, could be defined which explained around 80% of the variation in significantly decreasing productivity trends. Key Words: GIS, poverty, land tenure, land degradation en_US
dc.description.sponsorship Fiat Panis Foundation en_US
dc.language.iso en en_US
dc.publisher Tegemeo Institute en_US
dc.subject Land Degradation, Tenure, and Poverty -- Geospatial Analysis -- Socio-ecological Systems en_US
dc.title Land Degradation, Tenure, and Poverty: A Geospatial Analysis of Socio-ecological Systems in Western Kenya en_US
dc.title.alternative Working Paper 61 en_US
dc.type Working Paper en_US


Files in this item

This item appears in the following Collection(s)

  • Tegemeo Institute [96]
    Tegemeo Institute of Agricultural Policy and Development is a policy research institute under the Division of Research and Extension ofEgerton University. The Institute is established under Statute 23 (14-t) of the Egerton University Statutes, 2013 under the Universities Act , 2012 (No. 42 of 2012) and its Instruments.

Show simple item record

Search DSpace


Advanced Search

Browse

My Account