Land Use/Land Cover Dynamics in Upper Ribb Watershed, Lake Tana Sub Basin, Ethiopia

Abstract

Population growth causes land and water resources degradation in the Ethiopian highlands by changing the land use and land cover of the area. Land use/land cover change has been one of the factors responsible for altering the hydrologic response of watersheds. Various water resources projects planning and implementation will require knowledge of the extent of these changes on catchment hydrology. This study assesses the land use and land cover dynamics in Upper Ribb watershed. The land use land cover change analyses for three different years of 1973, 1995 and 2016 were performed using ERDAS Imagine 2014. An accuracy assessment was done for the 2016 land use and land cover classification and the Kappa coefficient, K= 0.92 which indicates the perfect classification. During  this  study  most  parts  of the bush/shrub  land  were  changed  to  grazing and cultivated land. The overall 43 years period (1973 – 2016) study shows that there was a dramatic increase of cultivated lands with 29.947%.  On the other hand bush/shrub lands were decreased by 34.195% for this study period.

Keywords: Upper Ribb watershed, ERDAS Imagine, Land use/cover, dynamics.

DOI: 10.7176/JEES/10-2-01

Publication date: February 29^th 2020