Investigating long-term ecosystem, social and landscape dynamics in East Africa

BOSCORF is providing high-resolution ITRAX data from swamp cores taken in the East African Rift Valley for Esther Githumbi of the York Institute for Tropical Ecosystems (University of York) - the first time cores from terrestrial swamps have been investigated using our ITRAX core scanner. East Africa has relatively few multiproxy records of environmental change despite evidence for significant climatic variability and societal change during the Holocene. This research, part of a multi-proxy study that combines palaeoenvironmental, historical and archaeological records, will give a better understanding of past environmental variability and dynamics of human-landscape interaction in East Africa over the last millennium*. The research will inform current and future socio-economic policies and land management decisions. Swamp sediments are challenging for ITRAX analysis due to their high organic matter content, but we obtained high-quality data showing interesting trends.

 

Sampling swamp sediments in the East African Rift Valley (photograph courtesy of Esther Githumbi and Colin Courtney-Mustaphi - York Institute for Tropical Ecosystems, University of York).

 

Core from Kimana swamp in the Tsavo-Amboseli ecosystem in southern Kenya, part of a group of East African swamp cores run on the BOSCORF ITRAX core scanner (photograph courtesy of Esther Githumbi and Colin Courtney-Mustaphi - York Institute for Tropical Ecosystems, University of York).

 

*This study is part of the Marie Curie Initial Training Networks project: Resilience in East African Landscapes.

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