GIS and Remote Sensing Based Detecting the Expansion of Tree Plantation and Its Impacts on Fagita Lekoma District, Amhara Regional State, Ethiopia

Abstract

The study intended to detect the expansion of tree plantation based on the existing land use land cover changes, trends, and their magnitude between 1986 and 2019 years using remote sensing and GIS and establishes the main drivers of land use land cover change in Fagita Lekoma District. In order to achieve these, satellite data of Landsat Thematic Mapper for 1986, Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus for 2002, and Operational Land Imager for 2019 have been obtained and preprocessed using ERDAS Imagine. The Maximum Likelihood Algorithm of Supervised Classification has been used to generate land use and land cover maps. For the accuracy of classified Land Use Land Cover maps, a confusion matrix was used to derive overall accuracy and results were above the minimum and acceptable threshold level. Post classification comparison changed detection method was employed to identify gains and losses between Land Use Land Cover classes. The satellite image results show that cultivated land and wetland similarly increased in the first period but decline in the second and the entire study periods. Grassland decreased from the first period and almost constant in the second period. In the 33 years, forest lands expanded by upon 200% of the original forest cover what was existed on the base year. Whereas, as a result of the socio-economic analysis the higher population growth, expansion of tree plantations, and agricultural land are the main causes of land use land cover change in the study area. The impact of this land use land cover change is more significant on the livelihood condition and status of the study area. From the observed changes expansion of forest coverage and growth of urban areas can be taken as something positive. The expansion of this land-use type is the cause to decrement of productive farmland which opened the way for the introduction and expansion of Acacia decurrens.