Abstract:
Within savanna environments, movements of elephant are influenced by
changes in climate especially seasonal rainfall. In this study, we investigated
the possible changes in elephant population based on projected rainfall
changes using regional climate models (RCM) and Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs). The relationship between elephant and rainfall was
modelled against annual, wet season, dry season rainfall based on various
time lags. Future relation between elephant and rainfall was projected based
on three RCPs; 2.6, 4.5 and 8.5. There was a strong linear relationship between elephant and October-November-December (OND) rains with time lag
of 13 years (Y = −4016.43 + 19.11x, r
2 = 0.459, P = 0.006). The rainfall trends
for RCP 2.6 and 4.5 showed a slight increase in annual rainfall for the period
2006-2100 but driven by OND increases. Rainfall increase for RCP 8.5 was
significant and was driven by increase in both March-April-May (MAM) and
OND. These rainfall dynamics had influence on the projected elephant population in the Amboseli ecosystem. For RCP 2.6 and 4.5 the elephant population increase was 2455 and 2814 respectively. RCP 8.5 elephant population
doubled to an average of 3348 elephants. In all the RCPs there are seasonal
and yearly variations and absolute number varies from the average. The range
of variation is small in RCPs 2.6 and 4.5 compared to RCP 8.5. Evidently,
elephant population will increase based on projected rainfall projections surpassing park capacity. It therefore, requires that the Park authority put in
place measures that could contain these numbers including opening of
blocked wildlife corridors, maintain the cross border movement of Amboseli
elephant with Tanzania in that case ensure there is no poaching. Lastly, work
with local communities so that they can benefit from tourism through setting up conservancies through which they could minimize the human elephant
conflicts based on the projected elephant population.
