Soil resources distribution, woody plant properties and land use in a lunette dune-pan system in Kalahari, Botswana

Abstract

The distribution of selected soil properties, selected woody vegetation properties, and land use in a lunette dune-pan system were investigated in the Sekoma area, which is located within the IGBP Kalahari Transect (KT) in Botswana. KT was established by the IGBP for studies focusing on both regional and global environmental changes. The study showed that the lunette dune-pan system exhibited substantial spatial heterogeneity in the distribution of the selected soil attributes. This limited the extent to which variation in the investigated vegetation characteristics could be explained on the basis of soil resources distribution. Encroacher plant species were found to be prevalent in the sites that were subjected to higher land use pressure. The study concluded that land use, particularly browsing, was the principal environmental driver and had precedence over the distribution of the selected soil attributes in relation to woody plant properties in the lunette dune-pan system.