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Spatiotemporal Landuse Land Cover Changes in Walmara District, Central Oromia, Ethiopia

Received: Aug. 08, 2019    Accepted: Oct. 15, 2019    Published: Jan. 17, 2020
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Abstract

The rapidly changing landuse/landcover at various scales mainly during the past recent decades have caused the degradation of biodiversity and this in turn has affected the human wellbeing in Ethiopia. However, adequate study is lacking particularly in Walmara district where intensive cereal based faming system is exerted by the rapidly increasing rural population growth. Hence, the aim of this study was to examine the spatiotemoral pattern of the landuse/landcover change that has taken place in 1985 and in 2017. For this, two Landsat images (30×30m resolution) were used to analyze temporal landuse/landcover changes with the application of Geographic information system (GIS) techniques and remote sensing (RS) using Quantum GIS (version: 2.18). Here, a supervised image classification technique was applied with Maximum likelihood classification algorism. With this analysis six main landuse/land cover types namely, cropland, grassland, forest land, settlement, wetland and water body were identified. In 1985 the areas of cropland (52816ha), grass land (16755ha), forest land (4633ha), wetland (1665ha), settlement (1124ha) and waterbody (125ha), while in 2017, the areas of cropland (64984ha), grass land (2442), forest land (4329ha), wetland (1404ha), settlement (3790ha) and waterbody (170ha). These results show that over the last thirty years, in the study district, the area covered by crops has increased by 15.8%, settlement area by 3.5% while, in contrast, the areas covered by grassland has shrunk by 18.6%, forest area by 0.4% in 2017. The major reasons for such rapid changes in landuse/landcover in the study are land exploration for agricultural purpose and built ups for settlement and small scale factories. Overall, the present finding suggest the essence of devising integrated landuse policy and plan to sustainably utilize the limited land and land resources and to reduce the impact of climate change that is occurring mainly due to the unwise use of these resources.

DOI 10.11648/j.earth.20200901.14
Published in Earth Sciences ( Volume 9, Issue 1, February 2020 )
Page(s) 32-37
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Walmara District, Landsat, QGIS, Land Use Land Cover, Supervised Classification

References
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[3] Abate, S., 2011. Evaluating the land use and land cover dynamics in Borena woreda of south Wollo highlands, Ethiopia. J Sustain Dev Afr 13 (1): 87–105.
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  • APA Style

    Tokuma Urgessa, Debissa Lemessa. (2020). Spatiotemporal Landuse Land Cover Changes in Walmara District, Central Oromia, Ethiopia. Earth Sciences, 9(1), 32-37. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.earth.20200901.14

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    ACS Style

    Tokuma Urgessa; Debissa Lemessa. Spatiotemporal Landuse Land Cover Changes in Walmara District, Central Oromia, Ethiopia. Earth Sci. 2020, 9(1), 32-37. doi: 10.11648/j.earth.20200901.14

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    AMA Style

    Tokuma Urgessa, Debissa Lemessa. Spatiotemporal Landuse Land Cover Changes in Walmara District, Central Oromia, Ethiopia. Earth Sci. 2020;9(1):32-37. doi: 10.11648/j.earth.20200901.14

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  • @article{10.11648/j.earth.20200901.14,
      author = {Tokuma Urgessa and Debissa Lemessa},
      title = {Spatiotemporal Landuse Land Cover Changes in Walmara District, Central Oromia, Ethiopia},
      journal = {Earth Sciences},
      volume = {9},
      number = {1},
      pages = {32-37},
      doi = {10.11648/j.earth.20200901.14},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.earth.20200901.14},
      eprint = {https://download.sciencepg.com/pdf/10.11648.j.earth.20200901.14},
      abstract = {The rapidly changing landuse/landcover at various scales mainly during the past recent decades have caused the degradation of biodiversity and this in turn has affected the human wellbeing in Ethiopia. However, adequate study is lacking particularly in Walmara district where intensive cereal based faming system is exerted by the rapidly increasing rural population growth. Hence, the aim of this study was to examine the spatiotemoral pattern of the landuse/landcover change that has taken place in 1985 and in 2017. For this, two Landsat images (30×30m resolution) were used to analyze temporal landuse/landcover changes with the application of Geographic information system (GIS) techniques and remote sensing (RS) using Quantum GIS (version: 2.18). Here, a supervised image classification technique was applied with Maximum likelihood classification algorism. With this analysis six main landuse/land cover types namely, cropland, grassland, forest land, settlement, wetland and water body were identified. In 1985 the areas of cropland (52816ha), grass land (16755ha), forest land (4633ha), wetland (1665ha), settlement (1124ha) and waterbody (125ha), while in 2017, the areas of cropland (64984ha), grass land (2442), forest land (4329ha), wetland (1404ha), settlement (3790ha) and waterbody (170ha). These results show that over the last thirty years, in the study district, the area covered by crops has increased by 15.8%, settlement area by 3.5% while, in contrast, the areas covered by grassland has shrunk by 18.6%, forest area by 0.4% in 2017. The major reasons for such rapid changes in landuse/landcover in the study are land exploration for agricultural purpose and built ups for settlement and small scale factories. Overall, the present finding suggest the essence of devising integrated landuse policy and plan to sustainably utilize the limited land and land resources and to reduce the impact of climate change that is occurring mainly due to the unwise use of these resources.},
     year = {2020}
    }
    

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  • TY  - JOUR
    T1  - Spatiotemporal Landuse Land Cover Changes in Walmara District, Central Oromia, Ethiopia
    AU  - Tokuma Urgessa
    AU  - Debissa Lemessa
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    UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.earth.20200901.14
    AB  - The rapidly changing landuse/landcover at various scales mainly during the past recent decades have caused the degradation of biodiversity and this in turn has affected the human wellbeing in Ethiopia. However, adequate study is lacking particularly in Walmara district where intensive cereal based faming system is exerted by the rapidly increasing rural population growth. Hence, the aim of this study was to examine the spatiotemoral pattern of the landuse/landcover change that has taken place in 1985 and in 2017. For this, two Landsat images (30×30m resolution) were used to analyze temporal landuse/landcover changes with the application of Geographic information system (GIS) techniques and remote sensing (RS) using Quantum GIS (version: 2.18). Here, a supervised image classification technique was applied with Maximum likelihood classification algorism. With this analysis six main landuse/land cover types namely, cropland, grassland, forest land, settlement, wetland and water body were identified. In 1985 the areas of cropland (52816ha), grass land (16755ha), forest land (4633ha), wetland (1665ha), settlement (1124ha) and waterbody (125ha), while in 2017, the areas of cropland (64984ha), grass land (2442), forest land (4329ha), wetland (1404ha), settlement (3790ha) and waterbody (170ha). These results show that over the last thirty years, in the study district, the area covered by crops has increased by 15.8%, settlement area by 3.5% while, in contrast, the areas covered by grassland has shrunk by 18.6%, forest area by 0.4% in 2017. The major reasons for such rapid changes in landuse/landcover in the study are land exploration for agricultural purpose and built ups for settlement and small scale factories. Overall, the present finding suggest the essence of devising integrated landuse policy and plan to sustainably utilize the limited land and land resources and to reduce the impact of climate change that is occurring mainly due to the unwise use of these resources.
    VL  - 9
    IS  - 1
    ER  - 

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Author Information
  • Department of Forest and Range Land Plant Biodiversity, Ethiopian Biodiversity Institute, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

  • Department of Forest and Range Land Plant Biodiversity, Ethiopian Biodiversity Institute, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

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