Land degradation is a major threat to sub-Saharan Africa rangelands, which are crucial for livestock farming and the livelihood of millions of people in the region. This systematic review aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the causes and effects of land degradation, as well as to evaluate the effectiveness of different mitigation strategies. Following the PRISMA guidelines, we identified, screened, and analyzed 25 peer-reviewed articles published before 30 June 2024 using Scopus. The review highlights key factors that drive land degradation, such as soil erosion, drought, deforestation, and climate change, as well as socio-economic factors like poverty, land tenure issues, population pressure, and economic instability. These factors have serious implications, as land degradation can lead to poor quality of forage, an increased incidence of diseases, higher mortality rates among livestock, and a significant decline in livestock productivity. The socio-economic consequences of this degradation are significant, leading to reduced household income, increased poverty, and heightened food insecurity. Furthermore, the review assesses various mitigation strategies and concludes that practices such as rotational grazing and soil conservation techniques demonstrate high effectiveness, while agroforestry practices show only moderate success. An integrated approach that combines environmental, economic, and policy measures is crucial to addressing the complex challenge of land degradation in sub-Saharan Africa. Strengthening land tenure, improving economic stability, and promoting sustainable agricultural practices are essential steps toward improving the health of rangelands, increasing livestock productivity, and supporting the resilience and well-being of rural communities.

Ecosystem services refer to the direct and indirect benefits to humanity from an ecosystem. The ability to spatially incorporate multiple biophysical environments is crucial to ecosystem services, thus promoting cooperation between science and policy in seeking solutions to global challenges, including drought disasters. Therefore, understanding ecosystem services, for instance, from forest/vegetation in view of contributing to drought disaster risk adaptation is critical to human-nature interactions and proper sustainable conservation thereof. No known study has been done on ecosystem services and their contributions to drought management or other climate adaptation in South Africa. This study aimed at quantifying drought disaster risk adaptation based on ecosystem services in South Africa. It was identified that ecosystem services to society have been directly affected by anthropogenic and natural phenomena, thereby influencing drought severity and its impacts. These impacts and their associated risks are evident globally, including in South Africa. We found out that ecosystems in South Africa have been affected and extremely vulnerable to recurrent natural disasters, such as droughts. To achieve long-term solutions to such drought-related risks and challenges, feedback mechanisms between human-natural and related factors and ecosystem services-based drought adaptation need to be understood and planned. Timely spatiotemporal assessment, planning and management strategies need to be considered to find solutions or ways forward to South Africa in combating drought disasters.

Climate change is already a reality, and it is affecting the lives and livelihoods of many people globally. Many scientists argue that adaptation is, therefore, necessary to address the impact of climate change on life-supporting systems. Climate change adaptation, however, is a complex process that involves transformations implemented through governance at multiple levels. In this paper, the barriers to climate change adaptation in South Africa are presented and analysed. Semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted telephonically and online via Microsoft Teams with 13 government officials working at the Department of Forestry, Fisheries, and the Environment; the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Economic Development and Environmental Affairs; and the uMkhanyakude District Municipality. The findings suggest that the barriers to climate change adaptation in South Africa include inadequate financial resources, a lack of human capacity at the provincial and local levels, limited political will at the local level, limited understanding of climate change adaptation issues by communities, inadequate coordination across government levels and sectors, no legal mandate at the local level, no climate change unit at the district and local levels, a lack of knowledge by some staff members tasked with environmental duties at the local level, not enough climate change plans in place at the local level, and outdated information on climate change used in the IDPs. This paper, therefore, recommends that climate change be a standing item in the Integrated Development Plan for local governments, which will ensure that climate change is budgeted for appropriately. In addition, this paper suggests that a mandate for climate change adaptation be developed for all three government levels. There is also a need for the government to invest in capacity development and improve horizontal and vertical coordination to strengthen the weak climate governance capacity that exists.

This study relates agricultural income and agricultural carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions in the context of environmental Kuznets curves for South Africa. We posit likely relationships between UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 1, 2 and 13, relating food production to climate change action. CO₂ emissions, income, coal energy consumption and electricity energy consumption time series data from 1990 to 2012 within the South African agricultural sector were used. The autoregressive distributive lag bounds-test and the error correction model were used to analyse the data. The results show long-run relationships. However, agricultural income was only significant in the linear and squared models. Changes in agricultural CO₂ emissions from the short run towards the long run are estimated at 71.9%, 124.7% and 125.3% every year by the linear, squared and cubic models, respectively. Exponentially increasing agricultural income did not result in a decrease in agricultural CO₂ emissions, which is at odds with the Kuznets hypothesis. The study concludes that it will be difficult for South Africa to simultaneously achieve SDGs 1, 2 and 13, especially given that agriculture is reliant upon livestock production, the largest CO₂ emitter in the sector_. The sector needs to shift to renewable energy consumption with fewer CO₂ emissions.

Evidence is unequivocal that rural and urban areas in South Africa are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change; however, impacts are felt disproportionately. This difference in vulnerability between rural and urban areas is presently unclear to guide context-based climate policies and frameworks to enhance adaptation processes. A clear understanding of the differences in vulnerability to climate change between rural and urban areas is pertinent. This systematic review aimed to explore how vulnerability to climate change varies between rural and urban areas and what explains these variations. The approach was guided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change vulnerability framework incorporating exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity dimensions integrated into the Sustainable Livelihood Framework. The review used 30 articles based on the search criteria developed. The findings show differences in vulnerability to climate change between rural and urban areas owing to several factors that distinguish rural from urban areas, such as differences in climate change drivers, infrastructure orientation, typical livelihood, and income-generating activities. We conclude that vulnerability varies with location and requires place-based analyses. Instead of blanket policy recommendations, localized interventions that enhance adaptation in specific rural and urban areas should be promoted.