Detection of changes in Earth surface features, for example lakes, is important for understanding the relationships between human and natural phenomena in order to manage better the increasingly scarce natural resources. This work presents a procedure of using Modified Normalised Difference Water Index (MNDWI) to detect fluctuations of Lake surface-water area and relate it to a changing climate. The study used radiometrically and geometrically rectified Landsat images for 1986, 1995 and 2010 encompassing the Kyoga Basin lakes of Uganda, in order to investigate the changes in surface-water area between the respective years. The Standard Precipitation Index (SPI) and Drought Severity Index (DSI) are applied to show the relationship between variability of surface-water area and climate parameters. The present analysis reveals that surface-water area fluctuation is linked to rainfall variability. In particular, Lake Kyoga sub-basin lakes experienced an increase in surface-water area in 2010 compared to 1986. This work has important implications to water resources management for Lake Kyoga and could be vital to water resource managers across Ugandan lakes.

In the face of growing pressure placed on the natural environment, the study on which this article is based considered the effectiveness of interpretive provision in mitigating the harmful effects of tourism on the environment. The aim of this research was to determine whether guided or non-guided interpretation is most effective in reaching the stated goals of interpretation. The four key goals of interpretation, namely visitor satisfaction, knowledge gain, attitude change and modification of behaviour intent, were used in the assessment of the relative effectiveness of guided and non-guided interpretation in the Kruger National Park, South Africa. Through comparing responses to questionnaires from post-visit samples and observing both guided and non-guided interpretation, the research found that guided interpretation was only marginally more effective in reaching the four key goals of interpretation than the non-guided interpretive media. Guided interpretation was found to be more effective in terms of visitor satisfaction, whilst guided and non-guided interpretation had only marginal differences in effectiveness in relation to knowledge gain, attitude change and intent to modify behaviour.Conservation implications: The necessity of implementing an appropriate interpretation programme within protected areas cannot be overemphasised. The interpretation programme should be designed to include elements of both guided and non-guided interpretation in order to achieve a predetermined goal. The effectiveness of the programme should be evaluated periodically and amended where appropriate.

This article constructs an evaluation framework using sustainable tourism indicators for measuring the sustainability of community-based ecotourism ventures. This framework is then applied to the Malealea Lodge & Pony Trek Centre in Lesotho. The results yield a number of concerning results that need to be addressed to ensure the long-term sustainability of the tourism venture. A mixed method case study approach was followed during which various sources of data were combined to determine the sustainability in terms of a number of social, economic, and environmental indicators. The evaluation framework proved valuable for the measurement of the present sustainability as well as the recommendation of areas for improvement of the sustainability performance. The constructed evaluation framework may serve as an important departure point for the determination of the sustainability of community-based ecotourism ventures in southern Africa. Although the constructed framework includes a number of baseline and community-based ecotourism-specific indicators, site-specific indicators may need to be added to take local conditions and circumstances into account for the reapplication of the evaluation framework to other community-based ecotourism ventures.

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