Riparian systems perform many critical ecological functions and services. Riparian areas are in
urgent need of rehabilitation to restore their natural functioning. In order to successfully
implement rehabilitation efforts in riparian areas, a management plan for rehabilitation is required.
An important facet of a management plan would be the assessment of riparian habitat quality.
The aim of this study is to produce a riparian habitat assessment approach that would be helpful
in developing a rehabilitation management plan. The approach needs to assess habitat from a
landscape scale through to a site scale, be concise, user friendly, effective and be able to be used
by all land managers. It must also allow for the identification of areas of high asset value that will
be prioritised for rehabilitation efforts.
Existing local and international habitat assessment methodologies reviewed did not satisfactorily
meet all the above objectives. Accordingly, a new methodology for riparian habitat assessment
was developed, consisting of a 3-leve1 approach which assesses habitat from a landscape scale
(macroscale assessment), a reach scale (intermediate-scale assessment) and at a site scale
(microscale assessment). The approach was tested in a case study of the Rivers Bend farm in the
Nkwaleni Valley, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
The developed methodology allows for an assessment technique of riparian areas that now
explicitly includes landscape attributes, local characteristics of the river system (reach scale) and
site scale level of assessment. Both the macroscale and the microscale assessments produced
spatial representations of asset values within the study area. These areas were prioritised for
rehabilitation efforts. Although these assessments produced results for identifying asset sites, the
scoring· systems did not reflect the changes in habitat quality with enough detail. It is
recommended that the characteristics determining the quality ratings and the scoring systems of
these assessments be reassessed. The intermediate-scale assessment produced relevant stream
profiles and gradient classes, but the application of the assessment did not successful1y delineate
the river into homogenous segments. Further study is required to better integrate the 3-levels of
the developed methodology. / Thesis (M.Env.Dev.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2001.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:ukzn/oai:http://researchspace.ukzn.ac.za:10413/4505 |
| Date | January 2001 |
| Creators | Challen, Duncan Nicholas Rance. |
| Contributors | Quinn, Nevil. |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Detected Language | English |
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