Analysis of Land Cover Change Detection in Gozamin District, Ethiopia: From Remote Sensing and DPSIR Perspectives

Abstract

Land cover patterns in sub-Saharan Africa are rapidly changing. This study aims to quantify the land cover change and to identify its major determinants by using the Drivers, Pressures, State, Impact, Responses (DPSIR) framework in the Ethiopian Gozamin District over a period of 32 years (1986 to 2018). Satellite images of Landsat 5 (1986), Landsat 7 (2003), and Sentinel-2 (2018) and a supervised image classification methodology were used to assess the dynamics of land cover change. Land cover maps of the three dates, focus group discussions (FGDs), interviews, and farmers’ lived experiences through a household survey were applied to identify the factors for changes based on the DPSIR framework. Results of the investigations revealed that during the last three decades the study area has undergone an extensive land cover change, primarily a shift from cropland and grassland into forests and built-up areas. Thus, quantitative land cover change detection between 1986 and 2018 revealed that cropland, grassland, and bare areas declined by 10.53%, 5.7%, and 2.49%. Forest, built-up, shrub/scattered vegetation, and water bodies expanded by 13.47%, 4.02%, 0.98%, and 0.25%. Household surveys and focus group discussions (FGDs) identified the population growth, the rural land tenure system, the overuse of land, the climate change, and the scarcity of grazing land as drivers of these land cover changes. Major impacts were rural to urban migration, population size change, scarcity of land, and decline in land productivity. The outputs from this study could be used to assure sustainability in resource utilization, proper land use planning, and proper decision-making by the concerned government authorities.

Remote Sensing Analysis of the Changes in Vegetated Coastland: The Case of Southeastern Europe

“…There is a need to understand the causes (i.e., drivers, pressures) of (vegetation land) change and their interactions, to sustainably manage land cover (Gedefaw et al 2020 (Geist and Lambin, 2002), infrastructure and policy/institutions (Lambin et al 2001).…”

“…A set of surveys can be conducted to collect data about driving factors and pressures of DPRS framework (e.g. Gedefaw et al 2020), and to collect in situ data of plants for conservation (see Lannuzel et al 2021). Important Plant Areas that are hotspots of plant (and trees) conservation identified by International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) can be potential areas for in situ plant data collection in the study region.…”

Effects of Land Certification for Rural Farm Households in Ethiopia: Evidence from Gozamin District, Ethiopia

“…Sedentary, rainfed, small-scale agriculture and livestock rearing are the major sources of livelihood within the Gozamin district. People primarily perform mixed cereal agriculture, with farmers growing teff, finger millet, sorghum, maize, barley, wheat, pulses, oil crops, vegetables and fruits [43,44]. Due to the high anthropogenic influence in the study area, native forests have been lost.…”

Analysis and Prediction of Ecosystem Service Values Based on Land Use/Cover Change in the Yiluo River Basin

“…One is based on primary data, the ecological processes and functions that constitute ES are quantified by the ecological model, and then evaluates the economic values of ES. Such a method is performed on one or a few kinds of services rather than the comprehensive ESVs [19][20][21]. The other is the equivalent coefficient method, where ESVs are estimated based on the equivalent coefficient of various ecosystem services and combined with the unit area of the ecosystem [16,22,23].…”