Assessment of land use land cover dynamics and its drivers in Bechet Watershed Upper Blue Nile Basin, Ethiopia

• Published in: Remote sensing applications 2021-11, Vol.24, p.100648, Article 100648
• Main Authors: Sisay, Getahun, Gitima, Ginjo, Mersha, Mengistie, Alemu, Woubet G.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: GIS; Land use land cover change; Remote sensing
• ISSN: 2352-9385; 2352-9385
• DOI: 10.1016/j.rsase.2021.100648

Understanding the drivers and magnitude of land use/land cover dynamics is important for land use planning and sustainable natural resource management. To this end, this study assessed the land use land cover dynamics and its drivers in Bechet Watershed between the years 1984–2020. Remote sensing, field observation, focus group discussion, and key informant interview were used as major data collection tools. This study concurrently followed the cross-sectional and longitudinal designs whereas the maximum likelihood technique of the supervised classification was used to classify land use and cover categories. Hence, four land use land cover classes (bareland, farmland, bushland, and forest) were identified during image classification. The analysis result portrayed a dramatic decrement of forest from 6.86% in 1984 to 2.99% in 2020 with a total destruction of 2048.2 ha with in the study periods. In contrast, the change detection result showed a significant increment in the areal coverage of farmland (64.6% in 1984 versus 72.18% in 2020). Based on net change to persistence ratio calculation, farmland was found to be the highest persisting LULC class in the watershed (with 0.043 net persistence), while forest was the lowest persisting land cover (with −2.45 net persistence). In addition, the results of focus group discussions and key informant interviews demonstrated that expansion of farmland and deforestation are the major drivers of LULC dynamics. Therefore, appropriate land use planning and institutional integration are recommended to revert the adverse effects of LULC dynamics and its drivers in the watershed.