Analyses of land use and land cover change dynamics using GIS and remote sensing during 1984 and 2015 in the Beressa Watershed Northern Central Highland of Ethiopia

Abstract

Analysing the trend of land use/land cover change and its cause and consequence on human livelihoods as well as on the environment is a matter of concern for sustainable development and management of natural resource. Retrospective analysis of land use/land cover dynamics and its driving force has been undertaken using satellite images of Landsat5 TM 1984, Landsat5 TM 1999, and Landsat8 TM 2015 with 30 m spacial resolution for Beressa watershed of Ethiopia. ArcGIS10.2.2 and ERDAS Imagine14 have been used for image processing to produce 6 land uses/land cover classes in the study area. The result of classified image indicated that in the last 3 decades, farm land and settlement area increased @ 71.6 ha/year and 16.8 ha/year respectively. Between 1984 and 1999, forest cover and water body decreased @ 5 ha/year and 0.03 ha/ year respectively but increased @15.6 ha/year and 7.1 ha/ year between 1999 and 2015 respectively. This increase could be possible due to the involvement of local communities to plant trees around their homestead and farm lands. In this program, plantation of indigenous tree species other than eucalyptus (which affect the ecology) was encouraged. The % share of grazing land and barren land has been decreased to 10 and 10.1 % respectively during 1999 that further reduced to 6.1 and 5.2 % during 2015 as against the 12.4 and 13.1 % during 1984 respectively in the Beressa watershed. Rapid population growth demanded more land for cultivation, more trees for domestic fuelwood consumption and more area for settlement had been responsible for drastic change in the land use/land cover change in the last 3 decades in the Beressa watershed. In order to check the loss of area from gazing land and barren land, alternative source income opportunities to the community dwellers may be provided. Therefore, environmental conservation, management and rehabilitation require integrated approach of community development at various levels.

Influence of land use and land cover changes on ecosystem services in the Bilate Alaba Sub-watershed, Southern Ethiopia

“…Nevertheless, settlement and bare land showed incoherent styles of changes (Table 4, Figures 4, 5 and 6). Similar result obtained by (Zeleke and Hurni, 2001;Tolessa et al, 2017b;Meshesha et al, 2016;Gashaw et al, 2017;Alemu et al, 2015) forest land was shrinking, while settlement and agricultural land increased significantly whereas Bewket (2002), Fentahun and Gashaw (2014) found the opposite, in terms of magnitude for changes. Zeleke and Hurni (2001) reported an increase in cultivated lands by 38% in 38 years .…”

Socio-Ecological Drivers of Land Use Change and Wetland Conversion in Kilombero Valley Floodoplain, Tanzania

“…In Northern Central Highland of Ethiopia, Orthodox churches, considered it is sin and sanctioned for cutting of live trees from church compounds. Thus, they have played a big role of preserving forests rich in diversity of indigenous plants such as Juniperus Procera (Tsihdi Habesha), Olia Africana and Ficus Vasta (Daero) in Ethiopia [31].…”

Land Use Land Cover Changes and Their Impact on the Lake Ecosystem of the Central Rift Valley of Ethiopia

“…To calculate annual rate of change for each land use class, the difference between final year to initial year which represents magnitude of change between corresponding years was divided by the number of study years i.e. 1985-1995 (10 years), 1995-2015 (20 years), and 1985-2015 (30 years) respectively using the following Equation as stated by (Meshesha et al 2016):…”