ABSTRACT
Land use change in savannas is that overgrazing is causing ever greater land degradation/desertification over ever wider areas. The expansion of grazing, the dominant land use in savannas, has resulted in overgrazing becoming an issue of central importance for savanna biome management to the extent that overgrazing is reported by some influential sources to be the main cause of savanna degradation. The common view is that overgrazing is the principal cause of desertification. The map identifies the factors that need to be considered when undertaking an assessment of overgrazing in a savannah. In a departure from standard Systems Mapping, the subsystems in the map are ranked in terms of their significance for assessing overgrazing and the dependency of one upon another. Overgrazing and fire have long been considered to be common and degrading forces in savannas. The majority of approaches to assessing overgrazing examine biophysical components of the savanna grazing system.
