This thesis describes a comparative study of actual and potential soil erosion in the Wilderness area of
the Umfolozi Game Reserve, and a biophysiographically comparable adjacent traditional KwaZulu
landuse area. Estimates of temporal and spatial variations in eroded surfaces, sparsely vegetated
surfaces susceptible to erosion, and active gullies were obtained from five sets of sequential aerial
photographs taken between 1937 and 1983. Estimates of the potential influence of rainfall erosivity,
soil erodibility, topography, and changes in vegetation communities and landuse practices on these
variations, were extrapolated from these aerial photographs as well as from maps, field surveys, records
and other studies. Interrelationships between these potential influences, and the extent to which they
actually contributed to the temporal and spatial variations in the three 'erosion' surfaces, were assessed
visually using a geographic information systems thematic overlay technique, and computationally using
a forward stepwise multiple regression procedure. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Durban-Westville, 1990.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:ukzn/oai:http://researchspace.ukzn.ac.za:10413/8761 |
| Date | January 1990 |
| Creators | Watson, Helen Kerr. |
| Contributors | De Villiers, G du T. |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | en_ZA |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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