Discrimination and characterization of management systems in semi arid rangelands of South Africa using RapidEye time series
In South African grasslands, rangeland management is strongly related to land tenure. Communal farms are reported to exhibit less desirable vegetation conditions for livestock than commercial farms. Time series of high spatial and temporal resolution imagery may be useful for improved evaluation of these rangelands as they provide information at a spatial scale similar to the typical scale of field assessments and may thus overcome the limited spatio temporal representativeness of field measurements. A time series of 13 RapidEye images over one growing season (2010 2011) was used to explore spectral differences between and within two management systems (commercial vs. communal) Isomap ordination was applied to map continuous spectral dissimilarities of sample plots. Using regression with simultaneous autoregressive models (SAR) dissimilarities were subsequently related to ecological variables of plant and soil, including indicators for grazing effects. The largest differences were found between sample plots of communal and commercial farms. Vegetation attributes were significantly related to dissimilarities in reflectance, both from the growing season and the dormant period. However, these relationships did not suggest vegetation degradation on communal farms. They further suggest that a management related pattern of grazing disturbance in the summer months led to spectral differences between farms but could have impaired the detailed characterization of spectral dissimilarities related to differences in vegetation composition.