LAND USE/LAND COVER CHANGE, DRIVING FORCES AND ITS IMPLICATION FOR LAND DEGRADATION AT YEKA SUB WATERSHED OF EAST HARARGHE HIGHLANDS, ETHIOPIA

Abstract

Land use land cover change mainly through the conversion of natural vegetation to agricultural land and settlement land has been the most widely observed activity in Ethiopia. The objective of this study was to analyze the land use/ land cover change, driving forces, and its implications for land degradation in the period between 1990 and 2020 in the Yeka sub-watershed of the west Hararghe highlands, Eastern Ethiopia. The study used multi-date remote sensing data taken for the periods of 1991, 2005, and 2020 from Land Sat Thematic Mapper (TM), Enhanced Thematic Mapper7 (ETM+), and Operational Land Imager (OLI) respectively. The remote sensing of each study period was preprocessed and classified using the supervised classification approach which is based on Maximum Likelihood Classifier (MLC) algorithm. The remote sensing data was supported with primary data collected through a survey questionnaire, FGD, and key informant interviews. Generally, five land use/land cover types were identified in this study. These include Bare land Cultivated land, shrubs, forest, and settlement areas. The results demonstrated that bare lands, cultivated lands, forests, and shrubs constituted the most extensive type of LULC in the study area. While the smallest lands cover classes were the settlement areas. According to the results, the study area experienced a significant change in land use/land cover in the period between 1991 to2020. Generally, the area of forest cover showed a decreasing trend whereas the area of cultivated lands and settlements were increasing over the last thirty years (1991 to 2020). Population pressure, increasing demands for cultivated land, fuel wood, and construction), policy, and institutional are the major factors attributed to the observed land use and cover change in the study area. The land use/ land cover change observed in the study area generally has resulted in an acceleration of soil degradation, a decline in the quality of soil and soil fertility, and an increase in the loss of biodiversity.