Abstract
This study aimed to assess the historical Land use/land cover (LULC) changes and project the future (2025) LULC pattern in the Vea catchment based on Business as Usual (BAU) and afforestation scenarios of land use. Landsat Imagery of 1990, 2001, 2011 and 2016 were classified at overall accuracy assessment of 82%, 86%, 85% and 88% respectively. Major transitions were modeled using the Multi-layer Perceptron Neural Network algorithm, and the future scenarios maps of LULC were projected based on the Markov chain after validation of the Land Change Modeler. The results indicate the conversion of forest/mixed vegetation (23.1%) and grassland (76.9%) to cropland as the dominant LULC conversion from 1990 to 2016. An increase in cropland, built-up areas, and water bodies were observed while grassland and forest/ mixed vegetation decreased over the last 27 years. The 2025 LULC simulation indicates continuous expansion of cropland at the expense of forest/mixed vegetation which is projected to decrease by 4.5% in 2025 for the BAU scenario. Under afforestation scenario, where forest/mixed vegetation and grassland are expected to increase, cropland is projected to decrease by 20% in 2025. These findings set a reference ground for sustainable land use governance through responsible planning and management of land and water resources by considering trade-offs between cropland expansion and ecosystems’ preservation in the Vea catchment.
Highlights
In the past decades, research has revealed unprecedented rates of land use/land cover (LULC) change which can be attributed to many factors including but not limited to overgrazing and rapid socio-economic development (WRC, 2008; Gyasi et al, 2011)
This study analyzed the historical (1990-2016) LULC changes in the Vea catchment and used the Land Change Modeler to project LULC up to 2025 LULC based on two scenarios
The outputs from Maximum likelihood classification of the Landsat images show an expansion in cropland at the expense of natural vegetation for the period under consideration
Summary
Research has revealed unprecedented rates of land use/land cover (LULC) change which can be attributed to many factors including but not limited to overgrazing and rapid socio-economic development (WRC, 2008; Gyasi et al, 2011). Similar observation was made by the study of Baatuuwie (2015) that observed a decrease in the forest/dense woodland areas and an increase in settlement and cropland (46.5% to 49.2%) between 1990 and 2015 when they used a multidimensional approach to assess land degradation at Nawuni (a sub-basin within the WVB). These studies on LULC change in the WVB have been conducted on a scale which may ignore or over-simplify landscape features due to the coarse resolution of the underlying data (e.g. 250 m MODIS). By using a higher spatial resolution (30m) satellite image, this study seeks to provide future LULC information which will be relevant for improving land management at the Vea catchment due to the findings of earlier research reporting continuous degradation
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