Effects of Development Interventions on Rangelands and Rangelends Management Strategies in Burder, Wajir County, Kenya
| dc.contributor.author | Abdinasir, Mohamed Harret | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2025-08-11T08:52:45Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2025-08-11T08:52:45Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2025-06 | |
| dc.description | A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Environmental Science in the School of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences of Kenyatta University, June 2025. Supervisor 1. Geophery Macharia 2. Simon Maingi | |
| dc.description.abstract | Wajir County is an arid and semi-arid area with little and unreliable rainfall. The main livelihood of its people is livestock production through pastoralism, which enables pastoralists to exploit scarce resources by practicing herd mobility, alternating the wet season and dry season grazing areas with the support of the traditional institution. However, development interventions in the last 40 years have disrupted these traditional systems of rangeland exploitation. The study assessed the effect of development intervention on pastures and rangeland management strategies. The study employed a mixed research design method and utilized both qualitative and quantitative techniques. Geographic information systems also determined land use/cover change from 1986 to 2022. Quantitative data was analyzed using SPPS version 25. The study found that 56% of the development interventions that have taken place in Burder Landscape rangelands were settlements, followed by water infrastructure development projects such as dams and boreholes at 44%. As a result, sedentarization has increased, with 77% of pastoralists practicing sedentary pastoralism. This has disrupted traditional range management institutions, affected wet and dry season grazing areas, and made herd mobility less applicable. Consequently, the rangelands have shrunk, and rangeland degradation has occurred due to overgrazing in one place throughout the year. The land use analysis grouped the land uses into four common ones in arid and semi-arid areas. The analysis had a Kappa accuracy of 77% and a user accuracy of 84%. Bare land and shrubland have increased from 101,903 and 104,780 hectares in 1986 to 112,137 and 121,817 hectares in 2022, respectively. The land under herbaceous and grassland vegetation shrubs has decreased from 110180 and 158088 hectares in 1986 to 89,924 and 151,008 hectares in 2022, respectively. Herbaceous Vegetation had the highest reduction in size at -18.38%, mainly because there was increasing pressure from the other succeeding land use conversion. Shrub land increased significantly at 16.26% due to high grazing rate, open clearing grassland, and herbaceous vegetation to create land for settlement and other development interventions. A kernel density assessment on the settlement distances indicated that high-density settlements and a reduced distance between settlements resulted in high land degradation and land cover change. Although traditional range management practices, such as herd mobility, have been slowly eroding, the study found that the best grazing strategy is still herd mobility and migration for optimal use of range resources (68.2%). Therefore, there is a need to revitalize traditional rangeland management institutions and integrate all development interventions with indigenous knowledge-based strategies to sustain pastoralist livelihoods. | |
| dc.description.sponsorship | Kenyatta University | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://ir-library.ku.ac.ke/handle/123456789/31166 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | |
| dc.publisher | Kenyatta University | |
| dc.title | Effects of Development Interventions on Rangelands and Rangelends Management Strategies in Burder, Wajir County, Kenya | |
| dc.type | Thesis |