Land use/land cover change analysis using geospatial techniques: a case of Geba watershed, western Ethiopia

Abstract

Land use/land cover change is a global environmental problem that significantly affects sustainable development and environmental quality. Anthropogenic activities are one of the main driving forces of land use/land cover change in developing countries like Ethiopia. This study is conducted in the Geba watershed in southwestern parts of Ethiopia. This study aimed to analyze the land use/land cover change over the past thirty years using geospatial technologies. The present study uses Landsat TM 1990, Landsat ETM + 2003, and OLI/TIRS 2020 to examine the land use/land cover change between 1990 and 2020. Land use/land cover classes are classified using a supervised classification method with the maximum likelihood technique. Results show that the agricultural land increased significantly, from 1786.6 km2 (37.2%) in 1990 to 3163.2 km2 (65.8%) in 2020, representing an increased rate of 45.9 km2/year. On the other hand, dense forest has declined from 2129.2 km2 (44.3%) in 1990 to 1127.8 km2 (23.5%) in 2020, which declines by the rate of 33.4 km2/year. Our findings suggest that sustainable land use planning and management are critically important in the study area.