**1. Introduction**

It is imperative and apparent that understanding changes in climate, and subsequently their implications on society and the environment (especially the devastating adverse effects), is a necessary undertaking. Integrating several disciplines to inform mitigation and adaptation options to the unprecedented climate changes and their devastating impacts has become important [1]. The general scientific fact is that climate change will increase the occurrence, magnitude, and frequency of extreme weather events and potentially lead to loss of food production and livelihoods [2,3]. A crucial global message is that there is a need for robust responses to arrest the adverse impacts to save lives and livelihoods, particularly in the most vulnerable societies of the world [4].

According to [5], vulnerability to climate change is regarded as the degree to which a system is susceptible to and unable to cope with the adverse effects of climate change. How much a system is exposed, its sensitivity to the exposure, and its adaptive capacity provides an understanding of how vulnerable it is. Climate change impacts are distributed unevenly around the globe [6], based on geographical location, level of vulnerability, level of preparedness and access to necessary resources to implement mitigation and adaptation, and societal capacity to understand and perceive climate changes [7]. Area-specific climate change assessments are, thus, vital undertakings to address the global challenge at local levels to increase the adaptation capacity [8]. The global agenda has been placed on climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Developing countries, however, have low mitigation capacity, and adapting to these changes is ideal and many countries are developing their own National Adaptation Plans

**Citation:** Gumbo, A.D.;

Kapangaziwiri, E.; Mathivha, F.I. A Systematic Study Site Selection Protocol to Determine Environmental Flows in the Headwater Catchments of the Vhembe Biosphere Reserve. *Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health* **2022**, *19*, 6259. https://doi.org/10.3390/ ijerph19106259

Academic Editors: Alban Kuriqi and Luis Garrote

Received: 28 February 2022 Accepted: 17 April 2022 Published: 21 May 2022

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**Copyright:** © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

(NAPs) [9]. These strategies to adapt to climate change are backed up by science which projects future possible scenarios. Southern Africa is one of the regions to experience some of the most adverse effects of climate change. Studies e.g., [10–13] indicate that the region's vulnerability is high, while its preparedness is low to nonexistent. Several issues such as poverty, corruption, political instability, limited access to climate information, pandemics, and other problems influence the responsive capacity of countries in southern Africa.

The past few decades have produced scientific reports on the projected magnitudes and directions of changes in the climate and the potential impacts on water resources' quality and quantity [14–20]. Improved projections are due to massive technological advancements [21,22] that have improved data collection and analysis methods and the efficiency and robustness of environmental assessment tools [23]. Such improvements have reduced some uncertainties related to environmental assessments and built more confidence and dependability in climate change projections to influence policy and decision making. High confidence in climate projections has made science a vital pillar to support the development of mitigation and adaptation strategies, approaches, and technologies necessary to combat the potential shocks of a changing climate [24]. These adaptation strategies are tested and modified in areas that have human–environment interactions. Several areas with these characteristics have been demarcated around the world and have been termed biospheres.

Biosphere reserves have been created as study sites to understand the climate change– human–environment interactions. The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) regards biosphere reserves as learning places for sustainable development [25]. They are sites for testing interdisciplinary approaches to understanding and managing changes and interactions between social and ecological systems, including conflict prevention and management of biodiversity. Consequently, there are 727 established biosphere reserves in 131 countries [25] whose purpose is to provide a learning environment for sustainable development in diverse and fragile but significant ecological regions. They utilize different socio-economic contexts to enhance the lives and livelihoods of the communities within them [26]. Local solutions to global challenges affecting sustainable development are developed and tested in these reserves. The value of these reserves in mitigating and adapting to climate change is significant, offering opportunities for case studies to be conducted as learning platforms. The Vhembe Biosphere Reserve (VBR) is a protected area in the Limpopo Province of South Africa. Its spatial extent limits the implementation of research work to only selected areas. These selected areas need to be carefully identified as they become the general representation of the biosphere and the results gathered from their study would need to be adopted by similar areas. Out of the 10 biospheres in South Africa, the VBR was selected as the area of study because of a high rural population vulnerable to climate change impacts. It is a data-deprived area that requires focus to generate information/data to aid informed decision making. Data availability and data quality are common problems in many areas in Africa [27] and this affects studies being carried out in such areas. Climate change impacts on water resources are affected by the lack of adequate and good quality time series of hydrometeorological data [28]. Creating protocols for carrying out research in such areas becomes critical to informing sustainable decision making.

Quantifying water resource availability against climate change is an important undertaking as water is central to sustainable development. Developing nations, such as the southern African regions, are mainly rural [29] whose socio-economic activities are closely tied to the availability of water resources. Many rivers in the southern African region have high flows during the rainy season and low to no flows during the dry season [29]. The dry season is persistent throughout the year and communities rely on the low flows to sustain their socio-economic activities and the environment. The South African Water Act of 1998 identifies the environment as a legitimate and important user of water resources in any sub-basin requiring that a determined amount of water be reserved. Hence, the environmental water requirements (popularly known as e-flows worldwide) are important

to catchment water management. In the Water Act of 1998, the e-flows are referred to as the reserve. The quantification of these e-flows in South Africa is an ongoing undertaking of great importance to water resources' budgeting and accounting [30,31]. The task generally requires a water practitioner or user to provide a holistic assessment utilizing any one of the several acceptable approaches and tools. This is to fully understand the ecological functioning and value chain of a given sub-catchment and determine a sensible and viable e-flow requirements regime for the survival and sustenance of the riverine ecosystem. The choice of a representative area of study or river stretch should then be carefully considered to produce results that can inform decision making for the chosen area and its implementation in other areas of similar characteristics.

Ref. [32] explained that case studies are intense meticulous studies of a particular area to generate results that can be generalized over a more extensive set of units. They are used in exploratory research [33], where no past data or a few referral studies exist. Therefore, identifying a study site that can address one or several objectives of the overall aim is essential. The overall aim of the intended study for which the case study site(s) must be selected is to determine the e-flows for headwater catchments that are suitable and necessary to sustain riverine ecology within major selected parts of the Vhembe biosphere and assess the potential impacts of a changing climate on the availability and sustainability of these flow regimes. Several headwater catchments are potentially available for study within the reserve. However, because of several factors (time, funding, technical expertise, and best representative of areas in the VBR), the study will have to choose one or a few sub-basins to use. Results would then have to be extrapolated to the rest of the headwater catchments. Thus, representative study sites must be selected to generate and establish baseline information and methodologies that could be applied in the other areas. This paper proposes a step-by-step and objective approach to determine the ideal case study site(s) to determine e-flows within the VBR.

#### **2. Study Area**

The Vhembe District Municipality and the Blouberg Local Municipality (within the Capricorn District Municipality) together form the boundaries of the VBR. Figure 1 shows the location and spatial extent of the VBR. The VBR is the largest of the 10 biosphere reserves in South Africa [34]. It reaches 30,701 km2, supporting a human population of approximately 1.5 million, with 97% of the population rural [35]. The Vhembe region holds a unique and extraordinary biological and cultural diversity in the Soutpansberg and Blouberg Mountains, together with the Mapungubwe World Heritage Site and northern Kruger National Park [35]. Local communities have a high, direct reliance on natural resources for livelihood, with 66% of households relying on firewood for fuel and subsistence agriculture [35]. Agriculture and tourism are the major socio-economic activities that sustain livelihoods in the reserve.

Several rivers within the VBR maintain diverse flora, fauna, and riverine ecosystems. These rivers include the Luvuvhu, Dzindi, Nzhelele, Tshipise, and several others, either tributary or pour directly into the Limpopo River. The transboundary nature of the Limpopo River brings about delicate management issues that need a coordinated effort for all riparian countries to benefit from the river's ecosystem values and functions. The VBR comprises three biomes: the Savannah, Grassland, and the Forest [35]. This implies the existence of rich biodiversity, some of which is endemic to the area. Such biodiversity requires coordinated and well-structured management strategies to ensure conservation viability. The general growth in population and dependence on the environment for energy and livelihood negatively impacts natural resources, and a changing climate is likely only to aggravate the situation.

**Figure 1.** A map showing the spatial extent of the Vhembe Biosphere Reserve (VBR) and the catchments for potential study sites.
