## 3 Results  
The random forest classification predicts an area of 3644 ha of potential Renosterveld loss between February 2016 and January 2020. The fitted model achieves an overall accuracy of 90% measured using the spatial k-fold cross validation. For the Renosterveld loss, stable Renosterveld and stable agriculture classes producers accuracy was 72%, 94% and 95%, and users accuracy was 81%, 92% and 91%, respectively. Despite the accuracy of this algorithm, many instances of false positives of Renosterveld loss are observed when manually comparing model output to very high resolution satellite imagery. Fewer instances of false negatives occurred. Common causes of false identification of Renosterveld loss were wildfires within stable Renosterveld (wildfire is a natural occurrence in this ecosystem) and stable agriculture miss-classified as Renosterveld loss. While this is a large overestimate of the actual amount of intact Renosterveld lost, it is desirable to overestimate rather than underestimate the true extent of loss. False positives are removed by the subsequent manual checking, whereas false negatives would go undetected. After manual removal of false detections and accurate digitisation of boundaries, the final dataset of confirmed Renosterveld loss between February 2016 and January 2020 contained 268 contiguous events covering 478.6 ha. In total, 13% of the area identified as Renosterveld loss by the random forest was confirmed and used in subsequent analysis. While the majority of rejected locations were indeed false positives, others suggest potential change. However, if it was not possible to confirm that Renosterveld removal or degradation resulted in vegetation transitioning from intact to completely lost between February 2016 and January 2020, the site was not included in the final dataset. Therefore, a higher percentage of the area identified by the random forests is indeed Renosterveld loss, and the true area lost is higher than the confirmed 478.6 ha. The confirmed loss of 478.6 ha represents 0.73% of the remaining 65,684 ha of Renosterveld mapped as either degraded or natural in 2006. It is likely there was far less intact Renosterveld in 2016 and thus the true proportion lost is slightly higher than this figure. Most of the events that result in Renosterveld loss are relatively small, with 57% smaller than 1 ha and 93% smaller than 5 ha (Figure 3). A few large events (18) greater than 5 ha account for 41% of the total area lost. The date of the 232 (87%) confirmed Renosterveld loss events was determined to within 60 days (the time elapsed between the final confirmed date of Renosterveld presence and first confirmed date of Renosterveld absence)--Figure 4. Of these events the date of a further 134 (50%) could be determined to within 14 days, and 55 (21%) within 7 days. Figure 5 shows the geographic distribution of Renosterveld loss events along with their size and median date of the loss event (the date halfway between the final confirmed date of Renosterveld presence and first confirmed date of Renosterveld absence). In general,Renosterveld loss occurred later in the western Overberg than the eastern Overberg during this time period. While spread throughout the region, clusters of land cover change are evident in multiple regions (from west to east): northwest of the town of Botrivier, north of the Caledonberg between the town of Caledon and Helderstroom, the Karingmelksrivier west of Napier, southeast of Greyton, east of Prote and both the eastern and western sides of the Breede river north of Malgas. Renosterveld loss events occurred throughout the year, though across all years the months with the highest concentration of events and the most area lost were February-March, and August-September (Figure 6). Little land cover change took place in the months of December-January and July. Between 2016 and 2020, 2017 saw the most loss  
Figure 4: Frequency histogram of the time elapsed before a change event could be positively identified for all land cover change events.