PAWAR in Queen Elizabeth National Park

Objectives

  • To satisfy the overarching goal of the WHRC and its collaborators with respect to the PAWAR project in general and Queen Elizabeth National Park in particular: to allow for better management of the Albertine Rift's network of protected areas by identifying the locations of active deforestation, as well as by aiding predictions of potential future threats.
  • To assist Park managers in gathering and processing data that will allow them to better manage and protect fauna currently under threat from poaching and/or human encroachment.
  • To develop a methodology to distinguish and delineate burn scars on the landscape from a widely-available remotely-sensed image.

Products

  • Remotely-sensed Aster mosaics showing Queen Elizabeth National Park as well as neighboring Forest Reserves, Kibale National Park, the Rwenzori Mountains National Park, and Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
  • A landcover map of the region encompassing Queen Elizabeth derived from remotely-sensed images by the Ugandan Forest Department's National Biomass Study.
  • Maps displaying spatial data obtained from the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA), including both information regarding human settlements and populations in the area and data on protected fauna and incidences of observed poaching and encroachment. Animal data include sitings of buffalo, elephant, lion, and waterbuck.
  • Maps displaying hippopotamus sitings in Queen Elizabeth Natoinal Park for the years 1999-2006. These maps will be used in modeling analyses to determine populatoin movements and responses to both natural and anthropogenic disturbance, including drought and poaching.
  • A series of georeferenced Landsat images from years between 1987 and 2006 processed to display properties including vegetation, landform, and burn scars. Aster mosaics are also used to obtain information regarding the land surface.
  • Burn scar analyses derived from mapping the extent of burns on the land surface on a sub-annual basis from the 1980s through the present, using both remotely-sensed images and field work. These analyses are used in conjunction with wildlife and vegetation models to assess the impact of burning on a landscape scale over a period of years to decades.

A landcover map showing Queen Elizabeth and the surrounding region (the layer does not include portions of the DRC to the west). Note the extensive areas of grassland to the north and south of the Kazinga Channel within the Park; the two blocks of fully stocked tropical high forest to the east of the Park are the Marambagambo, Kalinzu, and Kasyoha-Kitomi Forest Reserves.

Maps showing hippopotamus sitings within Queen Elizabeth as derived from UWA data, which are available for the years 1999-2006. The figure on the left shows the population distribution for three different years; the number in parantheses represents the total number of sitings for that year. The figure on the right show total sitings for the period 2000-2006. During this period there were 1,890 hippopotamus sitings and 42 confirmed instances of hippopotamus poaching.

A Quickook image from January 23, 2006 shown with digitized burn scars, which are recognizable by the difference in color. Burns are delineated from as many images as possible from period of several years, then compiled into layers that contain all burns for a single fire season.

The image on the left shows burns delineated from Quicklook images and compiled into layers showing all fires in and around Queen Elizabeth National Park during the 2006 fire seasons (fire season 1 = Dec-Apr, fire season 2 = Jun-Oct). The image on the right shows the number of times each area has burned for the period 2004-2007.