The Impact of land use change on peatland degradation: A case Nathong and Saming Village, Champhone district, Champasack Province, Lao PDR

Abstract

The major impact on land use change and peatland degradation was directly from human activities and inappropriate management. Changing of land use and land cover (LULC) influence directly on peat land drained and degraded. Nathong and Saming Village, Champhone district, Champasack Province, Lao PDR is one of proposed peatland area and rapid LULC changes from 2016 due to a social-economic growth. Therefore, the assessment of land use change is required for sustainable peatland management. The main objectives of this study were to assess LULC and its change between 2011 to 2016 and 2016 to 2021. In this study, remote sensing data has been used for LULC classification using random forest classifier in Google Earth Engine (GEE). Then, the post-comparison change detection algorithm was applied for detected LULC changes. The result revealed that mixed deciduous area was continually decrees 523.44 ha and 607.05 ha from 2011 to 2016 and 2016 to 2021. Additionally, cassava and dry dipterocarp were increase from 138.24 ha in 2011 to 2016 to 386.1 ha in 2016 to 2021 and 93.15 ha in 2011 to 2016 to 156.42 ha in 2016 to 2021 respectively. Additionally, the derived overall accuracy and Kappa hat coefficients of the land use and land cover map in 2011,2016 and 2021 were higher than 85%. The average producer’s accuracy and user’s accuracy for all land use and land cover types were also more than 83%. The derived information of land use and land cover data of this study can be used as information to support decision-makers and land use planners for to awareness and sustainable peatland management.