Research Publications (Geography & Environmental Studies)

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Experimental urban commons?: Re-examining urban community food gardens in Cape Town, South Africa
(John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 2023) Kanosvamhira, Tinashe Paul; Follmann, Alexander; Daniel, Tevera
Contemporary literature on urban agriculture often analyses urban community gardens as ‘existing’ commons with the capacity to counter neoliberal urban development and resource management practices. However, the existing literature on ‘political gardening’ generally focuses on cities in North America and Europe, despite the prevalence of urban community gardens and neoliberal planning across other regions, including Southern cities. This paper examines urban community gardens in Cape Town, South Africa to assess their capacity to function as urban commons in six areas: infrastructure, inputs, land, produce, labour and immaterial components. This mixed‐methods study employed questionnaires, semi‐structured interviews and observations across 34 urban community gardens in the city. The findings and analysis demonstrate how the urban community gardens counter neoliberal privatisation and individualisation processes. However, their capacity to function as urban commons is significantly curtailed by an entrenchment within the neoliberal context. Thus, the urban community gardens are framed as ‘experimental’ commons, a valuable re‐conceptualisation of alternative resource utilisation in neoliberal Southern cities.
How do we get the community gardening? Grassroots perspectives from urban gardeners in Cape Town, South Africa
(Taylor and Francis Group, 2023) Kanosvamhira, Tinashe P.
Urban agriculture offers numerous environmental, economic, and socialbenefits. However, it is often hampered by limited engagement in cities of theglobal South. This article offers bottom-up perspectives on how to increasethe uptake of urban agriculture activities. It draws on urban gardeners�perspectives in the low-income neighbourhood of Mitchells Plain, Cape Town.The mixed-methods approach combined a questionnaire survey, semi-structured interviews with urban gardeners, and interviews with civil societyactors and a state official. The results indicate that climate and soil conditionsare major deterrents to urban agriculture. However, community dialoguesabout urban agriculture�s social and environmental benefits could play acrucial role in increasing uptake and in facilitating conversations about urbanagriculture and food more generally. The paper offers recommendations forfuture interventions seeking to promote urban agriculture and support actorsin low-income neighbourhoods in Cape Town and other African cities.
Urban agriculture and the sustainability nexus in South Africa: Past, current, and future trends
(Springer, 2023) Kanosvamhira, Tinashe P.
Urban agriculture remains a topical issue that needs to be better understood in striving for sustainable cities, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. Through a literature review, this article examines urban agriculture studies in South Africa to identify trends, opportunities, and gaps in the literature. The article examines the discourses that have emerged based on a narrative literature review of 62 peer-reviewed articles from 1993 to 2022. The findings indicate that several gaps in the knowledge limit our understanding of the practice of urban agriculture toward sustainable cities, for instance, an under-representation of secondary cities and the general productivist focus of most studies in the country. The author argues that future research needs to focus on underrepresented cities using rich methodologies to gain further insights into urban agriculture and its place in the city.
Assessing the prospects of remote sensing maize leaf area index using uav-derived multi-spectral data in smallholder farms across the growing season
(MDPI, 2023) Buthelezi, Siphiwokuhle; Mutanga, Onisimo; Sibanda, Mbulisi
Maize (Zea Mays) is one of the most valuable food crops in sub-Saharan Africa and is a critical component of local, national and regional economies. Whereas over 50% of maize production in the region is produced by smallholder farmers, spatially explicit information on smallholder farm maize production, which is necessary for optimizing productivity, remains scarce due to a lack of appropriate technologies. Maize leaf area index (LAI) is closely related to and influences its canopy physiological processes, which closely relate to its productivity. Hence, understanding maize LAI is critical in assessing maize crop productivity. Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) imagery in concert with vegetation indices (VIs) obtained at high spatial resolution provides appropriate technologies for determining maize LAI at a farm scale. Five DJI Matrice 300 UAV images were acquired during the maize growing season, and 57 vegetation indices (VIs) were generated from the derived images.
Boundaries of benefit sharing: interpretation and application of substantive rules in the Lake Malawi/Niassa/Nyasa sub?basin of the Zambezi Watercourse
(Springer, 2023) Fatch, Joanna; Bolding, Alex; Swatuk, Larry A.
questions regarding how riparian states determine �who gets what, where, and why� in a shared watercourse. To facilitate peaceful coexistence, substantive rules��equitable and reasonable utilisation (ERU)� and �the duty to prevent the causing of significant harm�� define rights and responsibilities of riparian states in the utilisation of shared watercourses. The duty of riparian states to cooperate, as a principle of international law, plays an important part in realising these substantive rules. This article critically reflects on the principles underlying transboundary water management by focusing on the interpretation and application of substantive rules in the Lake Malawi/Niassa/Nyasa sub-basin of the Zambezi River Basin in Southern Africa. The case study demonstrates how interpretation and application of international water law are generally in line with customary practices, but are subject to highly localised decision contexts which challenge Southern African Development Community (SADC) attempts to establish a firm legal foundation upon which to guide access, use and management across the region�s shared river basins.
Public space and the cohesion-contestation spectrum
(GeoJournal, 2023) Middelmann, Temba; Rawhani, Carmel
The urban policy assumption of public space�s generative capacity for cohesion stands out as limited in the face of the reality of South African urban public space. Drawing on observations and experiences in a range of Johannesburg public spaces, we critique the assumption contained in international, national, and local South African urban policies about cohesive public space. We argue that assuming the agency of people as tending towards cohesion and that the agency of space is enough to ensure this because it is necessarily similarly cohesive, is incorrect. Likewise, assuming the primacy of the agency of space is misleading. This dichotomy of relationships focusing on space as cohesive, and people as influenced by space, requires a third element.
Pathways to food insecurity: Migration, hukou and Covid?19 in Nanjing, China
(Wiley) Crush, Jonathan; Xu, Fei; Zhong, Taiyang
The COVID?19 pandemic has issued significant challenges to food systems and the food security of migrants in cities. In China, there have been no studies to date focusing on the food security of migrants during the pandemic. To fill this gap, an online questionnaire survey of food security in Nanjing City, China, was conducted in March 2020. This paper situates the research findings in the general literature on the general migrant experience during the pandemic under COVID and the specifics of the Chinese policy of hukou. Using multiple linear regression and ordered logistic regression, the paper examines the impact of migration status on food security during the pandemic. The paper finds that during the COVID?19 outbreak in 2020, households without local Nanjing hukou were more food insecure than those with Nanjing hukou. The differences related more to the absolute quantity of food intake, rather than reduction in food quality or in levels of anxiety over food access. Migrants in China and elsewhere during COVID?19 experienced three pathways to food insecurity�an income gap, an accessibility gap, and a benefits gap. This conceptual framework is used to structure the discussion and interpretation of survey findings and also has wider potential applicability.
Black Belonging, White Belonging: Primitive Accumulation in South Africa's Private Nature Reserves
(Wiley, 2023) Thakholi, L; Koot, S
victions have been shown to be a mechanism of primitive accumulation in nature conservation. This paper adds an historical analysis to the discussion on primitive accumulation in conservation by exploring the seemingly innocuous mechanism of White belonging to land in South Africa's private nature reserves. Contemporary articulations of White belonging are replete with stories and images of White male �pioneers� from the colonial era who, upon arrival in �empty lands�, were able to create economies out of nothing. Such representations of history on private nature reserve websites and other promotional material invisibilise Black belonging and legitimise private conservation. By illuminating the inconsistencies in the empty lands narrative and the legacies of three championed conservation pioneers from the 19th century, this paper argues that White belonging is a mechanism of primitive accumulation, while Black belonging continues to be expressed in various ways in contemporary South Africa.
Covid-19 and urban food security in Ghana during the third wave
(MDPI, 2023) Onyango, Elizabeth Opiyo; Owusu, Bernard; Crush, Jonathan S.
While the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on household food security have been documented, the intensity and forms of food insecurity in urban households in the Global South have not been adequately explored. This is despite the emerging consensus that impacts of the pandemic were more severe in urban than rural Africa. This paper addresses this knowledge gap by examining the relationship between pandemic precarity and food insecurity in Ghana�s urban areas during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. This study is based on the World Bank (WB) and Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) COVID-19 High-Frequency Phone Survey. Using a sub-sample of 1423 urban households, the paper evaluates household experiences of the pandemic. Our findings show that household demographic characteristics are not a major predictor of food insecurity. Economic factors, especially the impact of the pandemic on wage income and total household income, were far more important, with those most affected being most food insecure.
Crop monitoring in smallholder farms using unmanned aerial vehicles to facilitate precision agriculture practices: A scoping review and bibliometric analysis
(MDPI, 2023) Gokool, Shaeden; Mahomed, Maqsooda; Sibanda, Mbulisi
In this study, we conducted a scoping review and bibliometric analysis to evaluate the state-of-the-art regarding actual applications of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technologies to guide precision agriculture (PA) practices within smallholder farms. UAVs have emerged as one of the most promising tools to monitor crops and guide PA practices to improve agricultural productivity and promote the sustainable and optimal use of critical resources. However, there is a need to understand how and for what purposes these technologies are being applied within smallholder farms. Using Biblioshiny and VOSviewer, 23 peer-reviewed articles from Scopus andWeb of Science were analyzed to acquire a greater perspective on this emerging topical research focus area.
'Africanisation' of South Africa's international air links, 1994-2003
(Elsevier, 2006) Pirie, Gordon
In the first decade of democratic rule in South Africa scheduled commercial passenger flights across the country�s borders more than doubled. Additional flights served new African air passenger markets and secondary airports in established markets. Overseas flights increased more slowly, serving a diminishing number of overseas countries and cities. In 1994 the Republic was linked directly by air with more overseas than African countries and cities; within a decade the pattern reversed. The changing geography of South Africa�s international air links reflects developments in the international airline industry, and South Africa�s increasingly prominent political and commercial role in Africa.
Mapping the spatial distribution of underutilised crop species under climate change using the MaxEnt model: A case of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
(Elsevier, 2022) Mugiyo, Hillary; Chimonyo, Vimbayi G.P.; Sibanda, Mbulisi
Knowing the spatial and temporal suitability of neglected and underutilised crop species (NUS) is important for fitting them into marginal production areas and cropping systems under climate change. The current study used climate change scenarios to map the future distribution of selected NUS, namely, sorghum (Sorghum bicolor), cowpea (Vigna unguiculata), amaranth (Amaranthus) and taro (Colocasia esculenta) in the KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) province, South Africa. The future distribution of NUS was simulated using a maximum entropy (MaxEnt) model using regional circulation models (RCMs) from the CORDEX archive, each driven by a different global circulation model (GCM), for the years 2030 to 2070. The study showed an increase of 0.1�11.8% under highly suitable (S1), moderately suitable (S2), and marginally suitable (S3) for sorghum, cowpea, and amaranth growing areas from 2030 to 2070 across all RCPs. In contrast, the total highly suitable area for taro production is projected to decrease by 0.3�9.78% across all RCPs. The jack-knife tests of the MaxEnt model performed efficiently, with areas under the curve being more significant than 0.8. The study identified annual precipitation, length of the growing period, and minimum and maximum temperature as variables contributing significantly to model predictions.
Estimation of maize foliar temperature and stomatal conductance as indicators of water stress based on optical and thermal imagery acquired using an unmanned aerial vehicle (uav) platform
(MDPI, 2022) Brewer, Kiara; Clulow, Alistair; Sibanda, Mbulisi
Climatic variability and extreme weather events impact agricultural production, especially in sub-Saharan smallholder cropping systems, which are commonly rainfed. Hence, the development of early warning systems regarding moisture availability can facilitate planning, mitigate losses and optimise yields through moisture augmentation. Precision agricultural practices, facilitated by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with very high-resolution cameras, are useful for monitoring farm-scale dynamics at near-real-time and have become an important agricultural management tool. Considering these developments, we evaluated the utility of optical and thermal infrared UAV imagery, in combination with a random forest machine-learning algorithm, to estimate the maize foliar temperature and stomatal conductance as indicators of potential crop water stress and moisture content over the entire phenological cycle.
Preparing for COVID-19: Household food insecurity and vulnerability to shocks in Nairobi, Kenya
(Public Library of Science, 2021) Onyango, Elizabeth Opiyo; Crush, Jonathan; Owuor, Samuel
An understanding of the types of shocks that disrupt and negatively impact urban household food security is of critical importance to develop relevant and targeted food security emergency preparedness policies and responses, a fact magnified by the current COVID-19 pandemic. This gap is addressed by the current study which draws from the Hungry Cities Partnership (HCP) city-wide household food insecurity survey of Nairobi city in Kenya. It uses both descriptive statistics and multilevel modelling using General Linear Mixed Models (GLMM) to examine the relationship between household food security and 16 different shocks experienced in the six months prior to the administration of the survey. The findings showed that only 29% of surveyed households were completely food secure. Of those experiencing some level of food insecurity, more experienced economic (55%) than sociopolitical (16%) and biophysical (10%) shocks. Economic shocks such as food price increases, loss of employment, and reduced income were all associated with increased food insecurity. Coupled with the lack of functioning social safety nets in Nairobi, households experiencing shocks and emergencies experience serious food insecurity and related health effects. In this context, the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to have a major negative economic impact on many vulnerable urban households. As such, there is need for new policies on urban food emergencies with a clear emergency preparedness plan for responding to major economic and other shocks that target the most vulnerable. Copyright: � 2021 Onyango et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Boon or bane? Urban food security and online food purchasing during the Covid-19 epidemic in Nanjing, China
(MDPI, 2022) Liang, Yajia; Zhong, Taiyang; Crush, Jonathan
This paper examines the relationship between the rapid growth of online food purchasing and household food security during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in China using the city of Nanjing as a case study. The paper presents the results of an online survey of 968 households in Nanjing in March 2020 focused on their food purchasing behavior and levels of food security during the early weeks of the pandemic. While online food purchasing has increased rapidly in many countries during the COVID-19 pandemic, little research attention has been paid to the relationship between online food purchasing and household food security. This paper provides detailed insights into this relationship in China. The medium- and longer-term food security and other consequences of the pandemic pivot to online food purchasing are a fertile area for future research in China and elsewhere.
Deserving and undeserving welfare states: Cash transfers and hegemonic struggles in South Africa
(Routledge, 2022) Torkelson, Erin
The South African social grant programme appeared as if it might suddenly end on 1 April 2017. The potential termination of grants kicked off a significant public outcry by members of parliament, the judiciary, the treasury, the press and civil society organisations. At the time, popular explanations of this crisis contended that grants were about to stop because of corruption and state capture. Instead I argue that the 2017 grant crisis extended and amplified the hegemonic struggle within the African National Congress (ANC) between two contradictory neoliberal tendencies, which grew out of the post-apartheid transition and the global conjunctural moment of the end of the Cold War. Following Gillian Hart, I define these as a �liberal�, technocratic neoliberal capitalist tendency and a �populist�, affective neoliberal capitalist tendency. Adherents of each tendency wielded the discourse of deservedness � common in welfare discourse for centuries � both against people receiving welfare and against the political formations vying to deliver welfare. Each claimed to be more deserving of the task of delivering grants and therefore more deserving of holding state power. Ultimately, the 2017 grant crisis helped to lead to a shift in political power, shoring up South Africa�s very unequal social formation without addressing the exploitation upon which it was based.
Comprehensive food system planning for urban food security in Nanjing, China
(MPDI, 2021) Zhong, Taiyang; Si, Zhenzhong; Crush, Jonathan
Food system planning is important to achieve the goal of �zero hunger� in the UN�s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (UN, 2016). However, discussion about comprehensive planning for food security is scarce and little is known about the situation in Chinese cities. To narrow this gap, this study collected and analyzed four medium-term plans and two annual plans for the �vegetable basket project� in Nanjing, China. This study examines the strategies for urban food security in Nanjing to shed light on how the city developed a comprehensive approach to food system planning over the past three decades. The evolution of incremental food system planning in Nanjing provides valuable lessons for other cities facing food security challenges and shortages of financial resources. Reducing food insecurity is an ongoing challenge for the city governments in the Global South and comprehensive planning is a useful tool for addressing the challenge of urban food insecurity.
Mapping rangeland ecosystems vulnerability to lantana camara invasion in semi-arid savannahs in South Africa
(African journal of ecology Wiley, 2022) Dube, Timothy; Maluleke, Xivutiso Glenny; Mutanga, Onisimo
We mapped and modelled the potential areas vulnerable to Lantana camara (L. camara) invasion in semi-arid savannah ecosystems in the communal lands of Bushbuckridge and Kruger National Park, South Africa. Specifically, we modelled potentially vulnerable areas based on remotely sensed data and environmental variables. The Maximal Entropy (Maxent) algorithm was used to model the vulnerable area. The reliability of the modelled results was assessed using Skills Statistic (TSS), Area Under Curve (AUC) and Kappa statistics. According to the results, Bushbuckridge communal lands are more susceptible to L. camara invasions than Kruger National Park. The risk of L. camara invasion in the study site was modelled with high accuracy (AUC score of 0.95) using the best model (Model 7), which is a composite of all model variables (remote sensing and environmental variables). The spatial distribution maps derived from Maxent showed that L. camara was more likely to invade communal lands than protected areas. Using remotely sensed spectral indices as standalone model variables (Model 4) showed the lowest accuracy, with an AUC score of 0.85. Overall, model input variables such as elevation had a significant influence on the spatial distribution of L. camara in the study area.
Assessment of cyclone idai floods on local food systems and disaster management responses in Mozambique and Zimbabwe
(Springer, Cham, 2021) Tevera, Daniel; Sibanda, Melusi; Mamba, Sipho Felix
In recent years, countries in southern Africa have experienced frequent hydro-meteorological disasters, such as widespread flooding caused by tropical cyclones. This chapter takes a close look at the destructive aspects of tropical cyclone Idai in Mozambique and Zimbabwe and the emergency disaster management responses. The chapter also seeks to understand the impact of the cyclone on food systems. The chapter is based on a desktop study that made use of scholarly publications and various media and organisation reports as the main sources of secondary data. A key finding of the study is that as the cyclone swept across the two countries, it exposed the fragilities of the local food systems, thereby presenting food insecurity challenges that potentially undermined the drive towards the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2 on hunger eradication. The other finding is that the disaster management responses in both countries focussed on the emergency needs in the affected areas without giving much attention to making the food systems more resilient.
A comparative estimation of maize leaf water content using machine learning techniques and unmanned aerial vehicle (uav)-based proximal and remotely sensed data
(MPDI, 2021) Ndlovu, Helen S.; Odindi, John; Sibanda, Mbulisi
: Determining maize water content variability is necessary for crop monitoring and in developing early warning systems to optimise agricultural production in smallholder farms. However, spatially explicit information on maize water content, particularly in Southern Africa, remains elementary due to the shortage of efficient and affordable primary sources of suitable spatial data at a local scale. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), equipped with light-weight multispectral sensors, provide spatially explicit, near-real-time information for determining the maize crop water status at farm scale. Therefore, this study evaluated the utility of UAV-derived multispectral imagery and machine learning techniques in estimating maize leaf water indicators: equivalent water thickness (EWT), fuel moisture content (FMC), and specific leaf area (SLA). The results illustrated that both NIR and red-edge derived spectral variables were critical in characterising the maize water indicators on smallholder farms. Furthermore, the best models for estimating EWT, FMC, and SLA were derived from the random forest regression (RFR) algorithm with an rRMSE of 3.13%, 1%, and 3.48%, respectively. Additionally, EWT and FMC yielded the highest predictive performance and were the most optimal indicators of maize leaf water content. The findings are critical towards developing a robust and spatially explicit monitoring framework of maize water status and serve as a proxy of crop health and the overall productivity of smallholder maize farms.

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