Grace Muriuki

A Method for Catchment Scale Mapping of Groundwater-Dependent Ecosystems to Support Natural Resource Management (Queensland, Australia)

Immediate and foreseeable threats to groundwater-dependent ecosystems (GDEs) are widely acknowledged, many linked to altered groundwater regimes including changes in groundwater flow, flux, pressure, level and/or quality (Eamus et al. in Aust J Bot 54:97–114, 2006a). Natural resource managers and other decision-makers often lack sufficient information at an appropriate scale to understand the groundwater dependency of ecosystems and ensure that GDEs are adequately considered in decision-making processes. This paper describes a new catchment scale mapping method for GDEs based on the integration of local expert knowledge with detailed spatial datasets to delineate GDEs at a scale compatible with management and planning activities. This overcomes one of the key criticisms often levelled at broader scale mapping methods—that information from local and regional experts, with significant understanding of landscape processes and ecosystems, is not incorporated into the datasets used by decision-makers. Expert knowledge is conveyed in the form of pictorial conceptual models representing the components, processes and interrelationships of groundwater within a catchment and the ecosystems dependent on it. Each mapped GDE is linked to a pictorial conceptual model and a mapping rule-set to provide decision-makers with valuable information about where, how and why GDEs exist in a landscape.

The Use of Sociological Methods to Assess Land-use Change: A Case Study of Lambwe Valley, Kenya

Abstract Land-use history, not readily available for most places, remains the weakest link in nearly all studies of historic vegetation change, in Africa as well as other places in the world. Notwithstanding, communities hold a great wealth of knowledge on the processes and events influencing change on the land they occupy. The Lambwe Valley, southwestern Kenya, has a multi-ethnic population of settlers from the early 1950s. These people have seen the transformation of an initially forested area with diverse challenges to their survival, to present-day scramble for the remaining high potential land. A large part of the forces driving human settlement and consequent changes in land-use and cover is attributed to the control of tsetse and trypanosomosis. The application of a socio-economic method of mapping land-use change with the participation of the community in this study depicted trends and the underlying causes. The control of tsetse fly and therefore trypanosomosis infection was significant in driving the changes in the valley. Agricultural intensification is suggested as a means to support the resultant higher populations of people and livestock.

Urban sustainability – a segmentation study of Greater Brisbane, Australia

Setting universal goals for sustainability is problematic and may hinder the adoption of sustainable pathways as different sectors of society often have differing opinions on not just what sustainability means for them, but also what is of priority to them. This paper tests a set of psychographic, behavioural, lifestyle and social identities to segment the public on sustainability. We evaluate general knowledge, apply social-choice tools to identify public priorities, and then apply segmentation to reveal broad strata of community profiles around these choices. We discuss our findings in the context of moving beyond knowledge on sustainability and general public choices, to more nuanced messaging and engagement that respects differences in sustainability orientations. We suggest that by focusing on what matters most for different segments of society, there is potential to design effective processes to engage with people and acquire better ownership of sustainability.