Land use/cover dynamics and its drivers in Gelda catchment, Lake Tana watershed, Ethiopia

Ebrahim Esa Hassen,Mohamed Assen

doi:10.1186/s40068-017-0081-x

Abstract

Background The demand for meeting local food production has caused farmlands to expand at the cost of natural forests and grasslands in the Ethiopian highlands. However, empirical evidences on rate and patterns of LULC dynamics, and major driving forces in highlands of Ethiopia at catchment level were rare to contribute to design effective land management options. This study was to analyze the rate and patterns of LULC dynamics, and identify major driving forces in the Gelda catchment.ResultsSix different LULC maps derived from aerial photographs and Landsat images were produced, and comparisons were made. The results indicated that the study catchment has undergone significant LULC alterations and transformations since late 1950s. Farmlands and settlement were expanded by 57.7% while shrubs, forests and grasslands were declined by 18.6, 83.8 and 53.5% over the entire study period, respectively. The magnitude of initial grasslands and farmlands converted into degraded land seems small; however these can significantly cause an irreversible damage to the soil resources. The combinations of land reform of 1975, forest development and villagization program 1980s, civil war, frequent changes in political structure, and population pressure were the major driving forces of LULC change.ConclusionTherefore, the GIS and remote sensing based change detection matrix analysis technique could provide useful baseline information to understand the spatiotemporal patterns of land use transitions caused by the major driving forces thereby sustainable land management planning is possible.

Highlights

The demand for meeting local food production has caused farmlands to expand at the cost of natural forests and grasslands in the Ethiopian highlands
land use and land cover (LULC) dynamics The LULC maps of the catchment for six reference years and the resulting statistical summaries are given in Fig. 4, and Table 3 and 4 respectively
The shrinkage could be attributed to destruction of natural forests in search for additional farm plots, construction materials and domestic fuel consumption in the study catchment

Summary

Introduction

The demand for meeting local food production has caused farmlands to expand at the cost of natural forests and grasslands in the Ethiopian highlands. Local changes in land use and land cover (LULC) affect life support functions and human livelihoods (Lambin et al 2001; Lambin and Geist 2006) It has diverse environmental impacts by negatively affecting water supply, reservoir storage capacity, agricultural productivity and ecology of a region (Sharma et al 2011). Increased deforestation and poor farm management practices has led to accelerated soil erosion and land degradation in the Ethiopian highlands (Mohammed et al, 2005; Hurni et al 2005; Hassen et al 2015) These are, common in areas where high population pressure exists whose livelihoods directly depend on the exploitation of natural resources in rural areas (Woldeamlak and Sterk 2005). Farmland/settlements and bushlands/degraded lands were expanding appreciably, while grasslands and forest areas have been diminished

Methods

Results

Conclusion