ABSTRACT
Swaziland is divided into four main regions. From west to east across the country these are the Highveld, the Middleveld, the hot dry plains of the Lowveld, and the Lubombo Hills on the Mozambique border. This division was used by rOns (1967) to map the following nine veld types in the country:
Highveld - Mountain Sourveld - Highland Sourveld
Middleveld - Upland Tall Grassveld - Moist Tall Grassveld - Tall Grassveld - Dry Tall Grassveld - Upper broadleaved tree savannah with Hillside
Bush
Lowveld - Lower broadleaved Tree Savannah - Dry Acacia Savannah
Swaziland has been divided into eight biomass classes in this assessment. The main factors used in the identification of these biomass classes were total biomass and productivity. The biomass classes represent land-use types in Swaziland rather than vegetation types, as is the case in a number of the other countries in the SADCC region. This is not entirely unexpected because of the large amount of land under forestry and agriculture. The biomass classes range from those that are highly productive with a large total biomass (e.g., forestry and irrigated cash-cropping) to those that have much lower biomass and limited productivity (e.g., rainfed cultivation and overgrazed grasslands and savannahs).
