APPLICATION OF REMOTE SENSING AND GIS FOR ASSESSING LAND COVER RESOURCES VARIABILITY IN THE SELOUS GAME RESERVE, TANZANIA

Abstract

Purpose: The study was conducted in Selous Game Reserve, with intention of developing GIS and Remote Sensing based wildlife management system in the protected area.Methodology: All habitats were digitised using ArcGIS9.3 in which five scenes of Landsat TM and ETM+ digital images were acquired during dry seasons of the year 2000 and 2010. Band 3 and 4 of the Landsat images were used for calculation of normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) for determination of vegetation spatial distributionResults: The NDVI maps of year 2000 to 2010 revealed the vegetation density depletion from 0.72 (obtained in 0.46─0.72 value interval and covering 46.5% pixel area) in 2000 as compared to 0.56 ( found in 0.38─0.56 value interval and covering 8.04% pixel area) in 2010 NDVI maps.Unique contribution to theory, practice and policy: It was recommended that there was a necessity to integrate applications of remote sensing and GIS techniques for the assessment and monitoring of the natural land cover variability to detect fragmentation and loss of wildlife species.