Evaluation of Land Use/ Land Cover Changes in East of Lake Tana, Ethiopia

Abstract

The objective of this study is to evaluate the Land use/ land cover changes in East of Lake Tana, Ethiopia. Data was gathered from two different years of satellite image (Landsat 5 TM of 1985 and Landsat 7 ETM⁺ imagery 2011). Global positioning system and topographical maps of scale 1:50,000 were used for ground verification. The data were employed using ERDAS Imagine 9.1 and ArcGIS 9.3 software. Field observations and focus group discussions of farming households were also conducted to gather additional information. The result of this study portrayed that there is an expansion of cultivated and degraded land by 72.7% and 39.34% respectively from 1985 to 2011 at the expense of forest, shrub and grazing land. The expansion of degraded land indicated that how the conversion of forest, shrub and grazing land into cultivated land aggravated land degradation. Thus, proper implementation of land use policy is recommended.

Keywords: land use/land cover, change analysis