L. Stromquist et al., Utilizing landscape information to analyze and predict environmental change: The extended baseline perspective - Two Tanzanian examples, AMBIO, 28(5), 1999, pp. 436-443
Citations number
46
Categorie Soggetti
Environment/Ecology,"Environmental Engineering & Energy
This paper illustrates the need for a revival and renewal of landscape anal
ysis in order to identify, evaluate and predict environmental change in env
ironmental impact assessment (EIA) and development perspectives. An initial
focus on the landscape, rather than on individual systems or processes, ma
kes it possible to widen the scope of study, to assess change in different
temporal and spatial perspectives and thereafter to converge on key issues
of relevance for specific areas or development projects. This approach can
be seen as a process rather than a method, which calls for intradisciplinar
y competence in data collection and evaluation as well as an interdisciplin
ary assessment capability. A combination of such scientific competence, loc
al knowledge, and experiences of the local environment is used to widen the
assessment perspectives and the prediction competence. The approach is ill
ustrated by its application in two Tanzanian studies. The Southern Highland
study emerged from two feasibility environmental impact assessments (EIAs)
of proposed hydropower projects whilst the Babati study was initiated as a
result of previous sectorial research on land management, which had to be
analyzed in broader perspectives. In both cases, a need to define environme
ntal baselines to assess land use and project related environmental change
had been defined by different donor agencies. One conclusion from our study
is, however, that there is no such thing as an environmental baseline, rat
her a baseline that has to be extended in different temporal and spatial pe
rspectives to fully understand and predict environmental and related social
change. This study can therefore be seen as a contribution to a new unders
tanding of environmental change that is required for strategic environmenta
l impact assessments and long-term natural resource-use planning.