Abstract
Climate change in the Southern African region has changed the variability of rainfall and temperature, causing extreme events such as heat waves, cold spells, droughts and floods. The changes in climatic variables such as temperature, rainfall, moisture and groundwater have impacted vegetation growth. Vegetation has critical roles in regulating climate dynamics and hydrological processes; it also serves as an interface of energy flux between atmospheric and terrestrial systems. Thus, the assessment of vegetation dynamics and response to different climatic conditions of rainfall and temperature is of crucial importance in environmental management. Variability in climatic conditions of temperature and rainfall intensifies with climate change. Temporal and spatial analysis of vegetation cover, structure and composition is therefore necessary for natural resource management, for vegetation monitoring and for making informed decisions on the status of vegetation coverage, especially in water-stressed countries like South Africa. The monitoring of vegetation dynamics as well as prediction of future scenarios benefit greatly by factoring in growth-influencing factors. Considering the spatial nature of both vegetation distribution and climate variations, assessment of such variables can be conducted effectively with rapid and efficient data collection and interpretation techniques. Such advantages offered by remote sensing have been exploited for a plethora of applications of remotely-sensed data for climate and vegetation assessments...
M.Sc. (Environmental Management)