Land Use Land Cover Change Detection and Vulnerability to Forest Degradation Using Remote Sensing And Gis: a Case Of Borena District in North Centeral Ethiopia
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Date
2009-06
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Addis Ababa Universty
Abstract
Land use/ land cover change has become a central component in current strategies for
managing natural resources and monitoring environmental changes. Hence, information
about it is essential for the selection, planning and implementation of land use schemes.
The aim of this study is to detect the magnitude and rate of land use land cover change for
the last 31 years from three different time satellite images of 1972, 1985, and 2003, and
generating susceptibility to forest degradation map using GIS techniques in Borena
district. NDVI image comparison and post-classification change detection methods were
employed, hence the result of multi_temporal imagery has depicted that the study area has
undergone a series of land us land cover dynamics, shrub and grass lands had decreased
whereas, cultivated and bare lands had increased. In addition to this, susceptibility to
forest degradation was done by considering factors such as cultivated land, settlement,
road, slope and elevation value. And then, four levels of susceptibility to forest
degradation map was generated. Based on the forest cover map of the year 2003 (6087 ha)
of Borena district, about (20%), (28%) and (32%) of forest cover land are categorized
under less, moderately, and highly susceptible to degradation respectively and the
remaining (20%) of forest cover is very highly susceptible to degradation. The problem of
forest cover change is directly linked with the activity of man such as expansion of
agricultural land, demand of fuel wood and constructional materials as well as using this
resource as income generating means’s. Besides, due to the problem of forest cover
change; land degradation in the form of soil erosion, as well as declining of biodiversity
seems to have reached a critical stage. In order to hold back the problem of forest cover
change and its impact, corrective measures had been suggested which can be implemented
both in the short term and long term phase.
Key words: Land use/Land cover change, Forest degradation Susceptibility, GIS
and remote sensing,
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Keywords
Land use/Land cover change, Forest degradation Susceptibility, GIS and remote sensing,