Dickens Odeny is a Research Scientist at the National Museums of Kenya at the Center for Biodiversity. He graduated with the Bachelor of Environmental Science at Kenyatta University in 2003. He received the Erasmus Mundus Scholarship in 2004 for the European Joint Master in Water and Coastal Management at the university of Algarve (Portugal) and the University of Plymouth (UK) which he completed in 2006. Dickens was employed at the National Museums of Kenya in 2007 at the Center for Biodiversity under the Wetlands and Marine Programme. During this period he developed great interest in studying spatial ecology and climate change. Due to this, he pursued a short course on Geoinformatics that was supported by the Government of Netherlands under Nuffic Scholarship in 2009. Dickens later on pursued a PhD study in Geographic Information System at the University of Nairobi (Department of Geospatial and Space Technology) with the support of Climate Change Impacts on ecosystem Services and Food Security in Eastern Africa (CHIESA-ICIPE) funded by the Finnish Government in 2012. His research interests are on spatial analysis, biodiversity, carbon sequestration and climate change.
Project Summary
Spatial modeling of biodiversity and carbon storage along the inhabited slopes of mount Kilimanjaro (Tanzania) and Taita Hills (Kenya)
Research Supervisors
Prof. Faith Karanja (University of Nairobi),
Prof. Rob Marchant (University of York) and
Prof. Petri Pellikka (University of Helsinki)
The East Africa Mountains plays important role on sustaining plant diversity and carbon storage in the region. The distribution of the woody plant species and carbon in mountain areas are determined by physical conditions. Due to suitable climatic conditions and fertile soils, agricultural activities have increased and intensified over period of time. This has potentially threatened the vegetation and amount of carbon storage on the inhabited slopes of the mountains. The main aim of the research was to understand the influence of physical conditions, soil factors and cropland systems practiced on the slopes of the two mountains on the distribution of woody plant species and carbon storage. In addition, it assess the interaction of climate change with the woody plant species and carbon storage.
Findings indicate distribution of vegetation and carbon storage are affected differently in croplands. Taita Hills has more woody plant species while the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro has more carbon storage. Physical variables influence the distribution of vegetation and carbon storage on the slopes of Taita Hills but soil factors seems to affect the distributions in Kilimanjaro. In the event of climate change most species will respond by shifting upslope. Mount Kilimanjaro will be affected adversely by the upshift of the species than Taita Hills. The upshift will affect adversely certain species and their associated carbon storage. Species like Mango tree will however shift downslope which will see suitable area of distribution increasing in the region. An effective crop management systems is required for improving carbon sequestration in croplands. While adoption of carbon sequestration programme in the region should rely on species that will increase in suitable areas in East Africa.
Links
https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=z1hrlXQAAAAJ
