Research on Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) dynamics, and an understanding of the drivers responsible for these changes, are very crucial for modelling future LULC changes and the formulation of sustainable and robust land-management strategies and policy decisions. This study adopted a mixed method consisting of remote sensing and Geographic Information System (GIS)-based analysis, focus-group discussions, key informant interviews, and semi-structured interviews covering 586 households to assess LULC dynamics and associated LULC change drivers across the Dedza district, a central region of Malawi. GIS-based analysis of remotely sensed data revealed that barren land and built-up areas extensively increased at the expense of agricultural and forest land between 1991 and 2015. Analysis of the household-survey results revealed that the perceptions of respondents tended to validate the observed patterns during the remotely sensed data-analysis phase of the research, with 57.3% (n = 586) of the respondents reporting a decline in agricultural land use, and 87.4% (n = 586) observing a decline in forest areas in the district. Furthermore, firewood collection, charcoal production, population growth, and poverty were identified as the key drivers of these observed LULC changes in the study area. Undoubtedly, education has emerged as a significant factor influencing respondents’ perceptions of these drivers of LULC changes. However, unsustainable LULC changes observed in this study have negative implications on rural livelihoods and natural-resource management. Owing to the critical role that LULC dynamics play to rural livelihoods and the ecosystem, this study recommends further research to establish the consequences of these changes. The present study and future research will support decision makers and planners in the design of tenable and coherent land-management strategies.

This study examined the extent of resource use and the level of degradation consequent upon land use. Three distinctive trends were observed in terms of forest and land cover dynamics. These are forest degradation, deforestation and regeneration. The paper integrated both, topographical map of 1969 and satellite imageries from Landsat MSS 1972, and Landsat TM 1991 with ground truthing and socio-economic surveys to assess changes in forest resource use and land cover in South-western Nigeria. The satellite images were analysed using ILWIS software version 3.4. Based on ground truth data and remotely sensed data, the study area was classified into five categories using the supervised maximum likelihood classification technique. The accuracy assessment was carried out on the remotely sensed data. A total of 30 points for each dataset were selected for this operation and the overall accuracy of 90%, 86.7% and 85% respectively was obtained from the three image datasets. Results showed three dominant ecological communities in Oluwa Forest Reserve while two effects of changes on species were identified. The first was the replacement of what could be considered as the original species by other species tolerant to the 'new' ecosystem. The other was the reduction in the range of the original species that could be found. This was an indication that the area had been fragmented comparing to its original status. Results suggest that resource utilization and land cover change dynamically over time. The study also revealed that the creation of forest reserve to restrict local access and resource use would have been an effective tool for regulating encroachment and logging activities if there was an effective enforcement of regulation. It is therefore obvious that the main aim of environmental management should be the protection of the natural living space of humankind and integration of environmental scarcity in making decision on all economic issues and activities.

To investigate the optimal cultivation conditions for cassava cultivar (TMS98/0505) in Nigeria, we employed agro-ecological zoning to delineate the cultivated lands. Using GiS-based multi-criteria analysis, we researched the influence of some meteorological and soil parameters on the clone cultivation. From the multiple-parameter climato-edaphic zoning map, an average yield of 26 t ha −1 was estimated. The dry Rainforest and southern Guinea Savanna account for 80% of the favorable zones. However, with irrigation, the cultivar would yield optimally in the northern marginal zones. Further, the significant climatic parameters are sunshine hour (t = 3.292, α = 0.0064) and rainfall (t = 2.100, α = 0.0575). Thus, the potentials of a location for cassava cultivation in Nigeria largely depend on the soil conditions, sunshine hour, and rainfall. Generally, the cassava yield correlates strongly (+0.88) with the suitability map. Considering future climate variability based on the annual rainfall data, we projected an average annual rainfall range of 565-3,193 mm between 2070 and 2099. Likewise, the projected range of daily temperature for 2046-2100 is 24.57-31.94 °C. Consequently, with currently allotted farmlands, nigeria can double her current cassava production through soil fertility enhancement and irrigation.

The study developed a Geographical Information Systems (GIS) database and mapped inter-annual changes in tuber crop yield as a response to inter-annual rainfall variability in the Guinea Savanna ecological zone of Nigeria. It also related the spatiotemporal variability in rainfall with tuber yields. Two major tuber crops were used for this study (i.e. Cassava and Yam). Kriging and other GIS techniques were used for the spatial analysis. Also, correlation and regression analysis were carried out on the dataset. The study fund out that rainfall varies from one year to the other (550mm to 2987mm). The results showed that there were significant relationship between tuber yield and total rainfall (r= 0.68, at p<0.05 for cassava; and r= 0.62, at p<0.05 for yam). The study concluded that geospatial techniques are ample tools that should be explored further for realistic assessment of the effects on climate of farming activities.

This study is concerned with the identification and delineation of aquiferous zones for potential groundwater development across Bulawayo Metropolitan from remotely sensed data and geological inference. Attempts have been made to review literatures on groundwater exploitation in the study area and the constraints to effective and sustainable management of underground water in the study area. Remote Sensing and Geographical Information Systems (GIS) is useful in the recognition and delineation of aquiferous zones for potential groundwater in crystalline basement aquifers. LANDSAT ETM+ image, SRTM data, aeromagnetic data and other ancillary data sets were utilized to extract information on the groundwater storing controlling features of this study area. Six thematic maps were produced from remote sensing data and other ancillary data-Land use/landcover, drainage density, slope map, contact density, lithology and lineament density. GIS modeling technique of the index overlay method was used to produce the groundwater potential map. The study revealed that the regional lineaments correlate with faults, fracture zones, and lithological contrasts along fold belts in the crystalline basement rocks, while the main direction of faulting and jointing is north-north-west to north with several faults oriented, to the north-north-east, parallel to the Great Dyke. Proximity to lineaments is the highest zone of increased porosity and permeability which in turn have a greater chance of accumulating groundwater. The results have shown massive spatial variability of ground water potential ranging from very good to poor. The variability closely followed variations in the structures, geology, topography/slope, drainage density and land use/land cover in the project area. This work is a reconnaissance which needs to be validated by the use of high-resolution terrain data and satellite imagery and the quantitative analysis should be done using geophysical and hydrogeological surveys.