Conference Proceeding
A good proportion of the aspects of range resource management are amenable to GIS technology
because range resource management integrates spatial and non-spatial aspects of data and
information for which GIS is best suited. Whether this amenability is exploited was questionable
and needed evidence-based research to confirm. The current paper presents the results of a
systematic review of the application of GIS in rangeland management in Tanzania. The specific
objectives of the study were: (1) to assess the distribution of the publications by year of
publication; (2) to examine the distribution of the publications by subject area; (3) to analyse the
relationships among key words used in titles and abstracts of the publications; (4) to describe
details of a sample of selected publications, and; (5) to evaluation the distribution of publications
by institution of the authorship. The study used the PRISMA method in searching, selecting and
analysing the publications. Records were retrieved from Google scholar, Scopus, and science
direct. We included 80 English language studies done in Tanzania for the first four specific
objectives and 136 for the fifth specific objective. There is an increasing trend of application of
GIS from 1 study in 1993 and years close by to 11 publications in 2021. About 34%, 31%, 27%
and 8% of the publications applied GIS respectively in environmental science, earth and
planetary sciences, agricultural and biological sciences and social sciences. The words ‘change’,
‘area’ and ‘Tanzania’ were the most frequently used in titles and abstracts. Furthermore, words
in titles and abstracts formed about five clusters representing study area (e.g. Tanzania), method
of analysis (e.g. remote sensing, assessment, data), topic of study (e.g. change, land use, land,
conservation) and land use (e.g. grassland, woodland, forest). Most words clustered close
together forming a meshwork but the word ‘conflict’ was the most distant from the rest of the
meshwork. GIS data sets used included land use land use/cover (LULC) layer, landscape features (e.g. rivers, roads, topographic variables) and socioeconomic data. Most publications came from
Sokoine University of Agriculture, University of Dar es Salaam and Nelson Mandela African
Institution of Science and Technology while the fewest came from Norwegian University of Life
Sciences, Hohenheim University and the University of British Columbia respectively. It is
concluded that GIS is increasingly being applied to rangeland management. However, social
sciences apply GIS the least. Tanzanian institutions lead in application of GIS technology, which
means it is no longer foreign expertise. It is recommended that all fields apply GIS wherever
appropriate. In particular, why GIS is least applied in social sciences aspects of rangeland
management needs further investigation.