Refugia Research Coalition

Tanzania

A towering, snow-capped mountain fills the background, and a dry, golden-yellow-orange savanna lines the foreground. A few scraggly trees are scattered across the plains.

View of Mount Kilimanjaro from Amboseli National Park, Kenya.

Photo credit: Sergey Pesterev, Unsplash.com

—Refugia in Tanzania—

 

Spatial Analysis of Climate Change Vulnerability for Tanzanian Biodiversity

This project is a collaboration between the United States Geological Survey (USGS), United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Tuhifadhi Maliasili (a Tanzanian NGO), Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute (TAWIRI), and The Jane Goodall Institute to systematically assess climate change vulnerability for priority species in Tanzania.

Objectives of this project:

  1. Synthesize existing knowledge about climate change impacts on Tanzanian biodiversity; 

  2. Conduct climate change vulnerability assessments for key biodiversity targets, as established by USAID with partners on-the-ground; 

  3. Conduct a spatial analysis of the climate exposure of the target environments in Tanzania; 

  4. Produce a climate change refugia map that highlights areas for prioritizing conservation action for biodiversity targets.


We will construct climate change refugia maps by modeling the future distribution of suitable habitats for key species using species distribution models (SDMs) and predicting suitable habitats for the 4.5 and the 8.5 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) for 2050 and 2080.


A bright green chameleon perches on the end of a stick. The snout of the chameleon is pointed, almost like a small horn.

The West Usambara Two-horned Chamaeleon (Kinyongia multituberculata) is an endangered species endemic to the West Usambara Mountains of Tanzania.

Tanga, Tanzania. Photo credit: alla_s_urala

Tanzania faces many of the same climate change challenges as other parts of the world, including increasing warming, evapotranspiration, climate variability, and extreme weather events (Luhunga et al. 2018, Luhunga and Songoro 2020). Due to the country’s position on the equatorial Indian Ocean, Tanzania's climate will have a complex and heterogenous response to Anthropogenic climate change. The impact of climate change on human livelihoods, agriculture, and socioecological systems has been the subject of extensive research (Lukwale and Sife 2017; Tanzania Country Climate Change Risk Assessment Report). However, much less attention has been paid to the impacts of climate change on biodiversity or ways to enable species to adapt to it.

Some research has shown that Tanzanian forests are highly vulnerable to global change - not only from climate change but also continued deforestation and degradation. This research is supported by recent work showing that climate change and deforestation will interact to decimate some of Africa's forested habitats (Morelli et al. 2020).

It is difficult to understand climate change impacts, let alone enact climate adaptation action, without knowing the degree to which ecosystems are susceptible to the adverse effects of climate change, including climate variability and extremes. The Spatial Analysis of Climate Change Vulnerability for Tanzanian Biodiversity project aims to fill this knowledge gap by systematically assessing climate change vulnerability for priority species in Tanzania.

 
 
 

***Project update: In October 2022, funded by USAID, Dr. Toni Lyn Morelli and Dr. Cybil Nicole Cavalieri traveled to Tanzania on a scoping mission for this project. They met with USAID, partners, and stakeholders to listen to feedback on modeling efforts and to develop target species for climate change vulnerability assessments and climate change refugia maps. They also met with the Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute to discuss data sharing and future collaborations on this project. Dr. Morelli and Dr. Cavalieri also conducted site visits to key ecosystems in the Eastern Arc mountains, Greater Mahale and Savanna.

 
 

—  Priority Ecosystems in Tanzania  —

Greater Mahale

Eastern Arc Mountains

Savanna

 

relevant publications

Burgess, N., Butynski, T. M., Cordeiro, N. J., Doggart, N. H., Fjeldså, J., Howell, K. M., ... & Stuart, S. N. (2007). The biological importance of the Eastern Arc Mountains of Tanzania and Kenya. Biological conservation, 134(2), 209-231

McLester, E., Pintea, L., Stewart, F. A., & Piel, A. K. (2019). Cercopithecine and colobine abundance across protected and unprotected land in the Greater Mahale Ecosystem, Western Tanzania. International Journal of Primatology, 40, 687-705.

Morelli, T. L., Barrows, C. W., Ramirez, A. R., Cartwright, J. M., Ackerly, D. D., Eaves, T. D., ... & Thorne, J. H. (2020). Climate‐change refugia: Biodiversity in the slow lane. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 18(5), 228-234.

Luhunga, P. M., Kijazi, A. L., Chang'a, L., Kondowe, A., Ng'Ongolo, H., & Mtongori, H. (2018). Climate change projections for Tanzania based on high-resolution regional climate models from the coordinated regional climate downscaling experiment (CORDEX)-Africa. Frontiers in Environmental Science, 6, 122.

Luhunga, P. M., & Songoro, A. E. (2020). Analysis of climate change and extreme climatic events in the Lake Victoria Region of Tanzania. Frontiers in Climate, 2, 559584.

Lukwale, S. R., & Sife, A. S. (2017). Climate change research trends in Tanzania: A bibliometric analysis. International Journal of Biodiversity and Conservation, 9(6), 224-231.

Sinclair, A. R. E., & Norton-Griffiths, M. (Eds.). (1995). Serengeti: dynamics of an ecosystem. University of Chicago Press.

Stuart, S. N., Stuart, S. N., Adams, R. J., & Jenkins, M. (1990). Biodiversity in sub-saharan Africa and its islands: conservation, management, and sustainable use (Vol. 6). IUCN.