Cargando…

Land Use/Land Cover Change and Its Driving Forces in Shenkolla Watershed, South Central Ethiopia

Land use change is one of the challenges that aggravate environmental problems. Understanding the scope of land use change, driving forces, and consequences is very crucial for proper management of land resources. We investigated land use/land cover changes using remote sensing data (for the years 1...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Bufebo, Belayneh, Elias, Eyasu
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Hindawi 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7910067/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33679262
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2021/9470918
_version_ 1783656051966476288
author Bufebo, Belayneh
Elias, Eyasu
author_facet Bufebo, Belayneh
Elias, Eyasu
author_sort Bufebo, Belayneh
collection PubMed
description Land use change is one of the challenges that aggravate environmental problems. Understanding the scope of land use change, driving forces, and consequences is very crucial for proper management of land resources. We investigated land use/land cover changes using remote sensing data (for the years 1973, 1995, and 2017), and field observation, household survey, key informant interview, and focus group discussion were used to determine the drivers and consequences of land use/land cover changes in Shenkolla watershed, south central Ethiopia. Unsupervised and supervised classification techniques were employed to get thematic information from satellite imagery. ArcGIS 10.3 and QGIS v 3.0 softwares were used to accomplish the analysis. The results disclosed that Shenkolla watershed has changed significantly during the past 4 decades between 1973 and 2017. This observed change indicates a reduction in forest land and an increase in agricultural land. Forest land was reduced from 29.51% in 1973 to 20.52% in 2017, but agricultural land was expanded from 70.49% in 1973 to 79.48% in 2017. Agricultural expansion, policy change and social unrest, population pressure, shortage of farm land, and biophysical factors were major driving forces of the LU/LC changes. Environmental implications such as climate change, biodiversity loss, scarcity of basic forest products, habitat alteration, decline in quality and availability of water, and crop yield reduction are the consequences of the LU/LC change. The expansion of agricultural land at the expense of forest cover in Shenkolla watershed has negative implications on the natural resources and the livelihood of local people. Hence, appropriate measures need to be employed to reduce the dramatic change in land use and to harmonize environmental conservation with human livelihood.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-7910067
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2021
publisher Hindawi
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-79100672021-03-04 Land Use/Land Cover Change and Its Driving Forces in Shenkolla Watershed, South Central Ethiopia Bufebo, Belayneh Elias, Eyasu ScientificWorldJournal Research Article Land use change is one of the challenges that aggravate environmental problems. Understanding the scope of land use change, driving forces, and consequences is very crucial for proper management of land resources. We investigated land use/land cover changes using remote sensing data (for the years 1973, 1995, and 2017), and field observation, household survey, key informant interview, and focus group discussion were used to determine the drivers and consequences of land use/land cover changes in Shenkolla watershed, south central Ethiopia. Unsupervised and supervised classification techniques were employed to get thematic information from satellite imagery. ArcGIS 10.3 and QGIS v 3.0 softwares were used to accomplish the analysis. The results disclosed that Shenkolla watershed has changed significantly during the past 4 decades between 1973 and 2017. This observed change indicates a reduction in forest land and an increase in agricultural land. Forest land was reduced from 29.51% in 1973 to 20.52% in 2017, but agricultural land was expanded from 70.49% in 1973 to 79.48% in 2017. Agricultural expansion, policy change and social unrest, population pressure, shortage of farm land, and biophysical factors were major driving forces of the LU/LC changes. Environmental implications such as climate change, biodiversity loss, scarcity of basic forest products, habitat alteration, decline in quality and availability of water, and crop yield reduction are the consequences of the LU/LC change. The expansion of agricultural land at the expense of forest cover in Shenkolla watershed has negative implications on the natural resources and the livelihood of local people. Hence, appropriate measures need to be employed to reduce the dramatic change in land use and to harmonize environmental conservation with human livelihood. Hindawi 2021-02-18 /pmc/articles/PMC7910067/ /pubmed/33679262 http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2021/9470918 Text en Copyright © 2021 Belayneh Bufebo and Eyasu Elias. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Bufebo, Belayneh
Elias, Eyasu
Land Use/Land Cover Change and Its Driving Forces in Shenkolla Watershed, South Central Ethiopia
title Land Use/Land Cover Change and Its Driving Forces in Shenkolla Watershed, South Central Ethiopia
title_full Land Use/Land Cover Change and Its Driving Forces in Shenkolla Watershed, South Central Ethiopia
title_fullStr Land Use/Land Cover Change and Its Driving Forces in Shenkolla Watershed, South Central Ethiopia
title_full_unstemmed Land Use/Land Cover Change and Its Driving Forces in Shenkolla Watershed, South Central Ethiopia
title_short Land Use/Land Cover Change and Its Driving Forces in Shenkolla Watershed, South Central Ethiopia
title_sort land use/land cover change and its driving forces in shenkolla watershed, south central ethiopia
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7910067/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33679262
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2021/9470918
work_keys_str_mv AT bufebobelayneh landuselandcoverchangeanditsdrivingforcesinshenkollawatershedsouthcentralethiopia
AT eliaseyasu landuselandcoverchangeanditsdrivingforcesinshenkollawatershedsouthcentralethiopia