Southern African Biomes: Caveats, Perspectives, Future Tasks

This chapter briefly summarizes the caveats of the presented system map and descriptions of the zonal biomes of Southern Africa. It also identifies the space of the future improvements of the biome system for the area. We recognise the suboptimal coverage and quality of vegetation mapping for many parts of Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe as the major impediment to the precision of the biome definition in Southern Africa at present. These countries, unlike South Africa, Lesotho, eSwatini and Mozambique, have not engaged yet in comprehensive programmes focusing on mapping vegetation at fine scales. We shall welcome further scrutiny of our extensive bioclimate-based system.