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Abstract
Background: Land cover/land cover (LULC) change is one of the major contributors to global environmental and climate variations. The ability to predict future LULC is crucial for environmental engineers, civil engineers, urban designers, and natural resources managers for planning activities. Methods: TerrSet Geospatial Monitoring and Modelling System and ArcGIS Pro 2.8 were used to process LULC data for the region of the Lepelle River Basin (LRB) of South Africa. Driver variables such as population density, slope, elevation as well as the Euclidean distances of cities, roads, highways, railroads, parks and restricted areas, towns to the LRB in combination with LULC data were analysed using the Land Change Modeller (LCM) and Cellular-Automata Markov (CAM) model. Results: The results reveal an array of losses (-) and gains (+) for certain LULC classes in the LRB by the year 2040: natural vegetation (+8.5%), plantations (+3.5%), water bodies (-31.6%), bare ground (-8.8%), cultivated land (-29.3%), built-up areas (+10.6%) and mines (+14.4%). Conclusions: The results point to the conversion of land uses from natural to anthropogenic by 2040. These changes also highlight how the potential losses associated with resources such as water that will negatively impact society and ecosystem functioning in the LRB by exacerbating water scarcity driven by climate change. This modelling study provides a decision support system for the establishment of sustainable land resource utilization policies in the LRB.
Highlights
Socioeconomic activities together with related human population increase and general increase in urbanization, elucidated by the rate of expansion of cities globally, result in unimaginable land use/land cover (LULC) changes
The Lepelle River Basin has always been a mining area and it is often seen as the ‘powerhouse’ of South Africa
The diverse population groups living in the Lepelle River Basin (LRB) and along the river in Mozambique all rely on the resources and services that the complex ecosystem in the LRB provides
Summary
Socioeconomic activities together with related human population increase and general increase in urbanization, elucidated by the rate of expansion of cities globally, result in unimaginable land use/land cover (LULC) changes. Methods: TerrSet Geospatial Monitoring and Modelling System and ArcGIS Pro 2.8 were used to process LULC data for the region of the Lepelle River Basin (LRB) of South Africa Driver variables such as population density, slope, elevation as well as the Euclidean distances of cities, roads, highways, railroads, parks and restricted areas, towns to the LRB in combination with LULC data were analysed using the Land Change Modeller (LCM) and Cellular-Automata Markov (CAM) model. Conclusions: The results point to the conversion of land uses from natural to anthropogenic by 2040 These changes highlight how the potential losses associated with resources such as water that will negatively impact society and ecosystem functioning in the LRB by exacerbating water scarcity driven by climate change.
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