Evaluating the Impact of Environmental Performance and Socioeconomic and Demographic Factors on Land Use and Land Cover Changes in Kibira National Park, Burundi

Abstract

In Kibira National Park, Burundi, socioeconomic and demographic factors lead to environmental performance challenges that impede biodiversity; thus, understanding the impact of these determinants on land use and land cover change is important to address these challenges. In this study, a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) model was used to quantify the impact of socioeconomic and demographic factors on land cover/land use (LCLU) changes using Landsat images captured between 1990 and 2021. In addition, the impact of the environmental performance index (EPI), particularly ecosystem vitality (ECO), on landscape fragmentation was examined using a Spearman correlation analysis. A Pearson correlation analysis and a principal component analysis (PCA) were used to investigate the connections between the indicators of relevance in this study. The results reveal a decrease in forestland from 86.1% to 81.32%, a decrease in water bodies from 0.352% to 0.178%, and a decrease in open land from 2.124% to 1.134%, whereas grassland increased from 11.43% to 17.37% between 1990 and 2021. The landscape fragmentation in the edge density, contagion (CONTAG), largest patch index (LPI), number of patches (NP), and patch density (PD) was reduced in 2011 but increased again from 2016 to 2021, when only the ED fragmentation continued to decrease. The MANOVA results show that the rural population had a significant impact on LCLU changes at the 5% level of significance. Demographic factors significantly contributed to changes in grassland and forestland at a probability of 5%. In addition, moderately significant connections were observed between population growth per year and water and between gross domestic product (GDP) and grassland at the 10% level. ECO issues in ecosystem services (ECSs) were statistically significant for the increased fragmentation metrics, while biodiversity and habitat (BDH) were important for reducing the edge density (ED) at a 5% level of significance. The Pearson correlations showed a substantial positive relationship between the socioeconomic and demographic components, whereas a negative connection was found between the forestland and BDH indicators. These findings are essential for understanding the significant drivers of LCLU changes and the influence of environmental performance on the landscape pattern.