Abstract
Evaluation of land use/land cover (LULC) status of watersheds is vital to environmental management. This study was carried out in Jewha watershed, which is found in the upper Awash River basin of central Ethiopia. The total catchment area is 502 km2. All climatic zones of Ethiopia, including lowland arid (‘Kola’), midland semi-arid (‘Woinadega’), humid highland (Dega) and afro alpine (‘Wurch’) can be found in the watershed. The study focused on LULC classification and change detection using GIS and remote sensing techniques by analyzing satellite images. The data preprocessing and post-process was done using multi-temporal spectral satellite data. The images were used to evaluate the temporal trends of the LULC class by considering the years 1984, 1995, 2005 and 2015. Accuracy assessment and change detection of the classification were undertaken by accounting these four years images. The land use types in the study area were categorized into six classes: natural forest, plantation forest, cultivated land, shrub land, grass land and bare land. The result shows the cover classes which has high environmental role such as forest and shrub has decreased dramatically through time with cultivated land increasing during the same period in the watershed. The forest cover in 1984 was about 6.5% of the total catchment area, and it had decreased to 4.2% in 2015. In contrast, cultivated land increased from 38.7% in 1984 to 51% in 2015. Shrub land decreased from 28 to 18% in the same period. Bare land increased due to high gully formation in the catchment. In 1984, it was 1.8% which turned to 0.6% in 1995 then increased in 2015 to 2.7%. Plantation forest was not detected in 1984. In 1995, it covers 1.5% which turned to be the same in 2015. The study clearly demonstrated that there are significant changes of land use and land cover in the catchment. The findings will allow making informed decision which will allow better land use management and environmental conservation interventions.
Highlights
Land use land cover (LULC) change is affected worldwide ecological processes, which results in major environmental challenges of global importance [14, 19]
Based on the 2007 national census conducted by the Central Statistical Agency of Ethiopia (CSA), Kewot District has a total population of 118,381, an increase of 9.97% over the 1994 census
The cloud-free land sat images were downloaded from the United States Geological Survey (USGS)
Summary
Land use land cover (LULC) change is affected worldwide ecological processes, which results in major environmental challenges of global importance [14, 19]. It were estimated that the human footprint has affected 83% of the global terrestrial land surface. About 60% of the ecosystem services in the past 50 years alone were degraded by LULC change [15]. Deforestation, urban development, agriculture and other human activities have substantially altered the Earth’s landscape [23]. Agriculture occupies 38% of the globe’s ice-free terrestrial surface and is the largest land cover type by area [10]. The rate of agricultural expansion are decreasing globally. The impact is expected to be high in developing countries like Ethiopia [1]
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