Vegetation change as an indication of climate change : the case of Butana, Sudan

Abstract EN

As climate changes, the natural vegetation must also change, and vise versa.

Climate is always shifting and this is not, therefore, a new process: What is new is that much of the earth is now a garden, with its vegetation controlled not only by natural processes but by the design or accident impact of humanity.

On the other hand, plant is a crucial component of any ecological system.

Butana is chosen as a research area to test the research hypothesis and to accomplish the research rationale, due to its both geographical location, and physical and economic eminence.

Based on this, the paper aims at finding and assessing the relationship between shrubbery changes and climate change in Butana area, Sudan.

Such a relationship will be modeled in a form of paradigm for different purposes.

The research is approached by an ecological contemplation.

Such an approach necessitates that both temporal (timely) and spatial.

It pursues an analytical method that relies mainly on primary data collected from its original sources.

Such sources are supplied by other secondary and tertiary sources.

Secondary sources include official reports and statistics, maps, satellite imagery and air photos; while tertiary sources refer mainly to both published books and research.

Climatic data are collected from metrological stations in the research area, as well as from other official anon-official reports.

This is beside that plant and soil sampled information are collected through fieldwork survey, and are all scrutinized in different ways.

The Research has reached some outstanding results pertaining to the following in the context of the shrubbery changes as an indication of climate change: ¨The association between albedo and rainfall is crucial in understanding the relationship between vegetation changes and climate change.

¨The association between soil moisture and rainfall, on one hands, and between soil erosion and both plant cover and soil moisture, on the other, is essential in understanding the relationship between shrubbery changes and climate change.

¨There is a connection between vegetation aspects changes and isohyets changes.