ASSESSMENT OF THE IMPACTS OF URBAN EXPANSION ON AGRICULTURAL LAND-USE INTENSITY IN ETHIOPIA, THE CASE OF ADDIS ABABA

Abstract

Unplanned urban expansion is one of the challenging problems faced by developing countries, such as Ethiopia. Therefore, this study was conducted to assess the impact of urbanization on the land-use intensity in Addis Ababa by taking advantage of modern techniques, such as Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Remote Sensing (RS). The research used multi-spatiotemporal Landsat OLI images of 2010, 2015, and 2020 with a 30 m resolution. Maximum likelihood-based supervised classification was employed to extract the study area’s leading land use/land cover (LULC) classes. Six land cover classes were identified: built-up land, water bodies, woodland, grassland, arable land, and unused lands. Results revealed that 11.87% of the arable land was converted into built-up land over the study period (2010-2020). Interestingly, urbanization showed adverse trends, occupying 30.63%, 39.03%, and 46.62% of the entire study area in 2010, 2015, and 2020, respectively. Of all the classes, arable land was the most affected category, as 78.65% (86.282 km²) of the land encroached upon by urbanization belonged to arable land. Therefore, the aggressive and rapid encroachment of built-up land was a significant factor in the severe degradation of agricultural land, significantly impacting agricultural land-use intensity.