Mapping spatial distribution and geographic shifts of East African highland banana (Musa spp.) in Uganda
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Date
2022
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Plos one
Abstract
East African highland banana (Musa acuminata genome group AAA-EA; hereafter referred
to as banana) is critical for Uganda’s food supply, hence our aim to map current distribution
and to understand changes in banana production areas over the past five decades. We collected
banana presence/absence data through an online survey based on high-resolution
satellite images and coupled this data with independent covariates as inputs for ensemble
machine learning prediction of current banana distribution. We assessed geographic shifts
of production areas using spatially explicit differences between the 1958 and 2016 banana
distribution maps. The biophysical factors associated with banana spatial distribution and
geographic shift were determined using a logistic regression model and classification and
regression tree, respectively. Ensemble models were superior (AUC = 0.895; 0.907) compared
to their constituent algorithms trained with 12 and 17 covariates, respectively: random
forests (AUC = 0.883; 0.901), gradient boosting machines (AUC = 0.878; 0.903), and neural
networks (AUC = 0.870; 0.890). The logistic regression model (AUC = 0.879) performance
was similar to that for the ensemble model and its constituent algorithms. In 2016, banana
cultivation was concentrated in the western (44%) and central (36%) regions, while only a
small proportion was in the eastern (18%) and northern (2%) regions. About 60% of
increased cultivation since 1958 was in the western region; 50% of decreased cultivation in
the eastern region; and 44% of continued cultivation in the central region. Soil organic carbon,
soil pH, annual precipitation, slope gradient, bulk density and blue reflectance were
associated with increased banana cultivation while precipitation seasonality and mean
annual temperature were associated with decreased banana cultivation over the past 50
years. The maps of spatial distribution and geographic shift of banana can support targeting
of context-specific intensification options and policy advocacy to avert agriculture driven
environmental degradation.
Description
Keywords
Spatial distribution, Geographic shifts, East African highland banana (Musa spp.), Uganda
Citation
Ochola D, Boekelo B, van de Ven GWJ, Taulya G, Kubiriba J, van Asten PJA, et al. (2022) Mapping spatial distribution and geographic shifts of East African highland banana (Musa spp.) in Uganda. PLoS ONE 17(2): e0263439. https://doi. org/10.1371/journal.pone.0263439