Evaluating The Land Use And Land Cover Dynamics In Borena Woreda South Wollo Highlands, Ethiopia

Abstract

This paper describes the land use and land cover dynamics in Borena
Woreda of South Wollo Highlands of Ethiopia and implications by using
the DPSIR framework(Driving Forces-Pressures-State-Impact-Response) in
a Geographical Information System (GIS) context. The integration of
satellite remote sensing and GIS was an effective approach for analyzing the
direction, rate, and spatial pattern of land use change. Three land use and
land cover maps were produced by analyzing remotely sensed images of
Landsat satellite imageries at three time points (1972,1985,and 2003) . The
result shows five major land use and land cover types. These include forest,
shrub or bush, grassland, agricultural land and bare land. Between (1972 to
1985), there was a dramatic expansion of agricultural land followed by bare
land while, shrub land, forest land and grass land showed reduction in
coverage. The period between 1985 to 2003,saw similar changes in
agricultural land, bare land, shrub land and forest land cover but grass land
showed a slight expansion in coverage due to the conversion of forest and
shrub land to grass land. The major driving forces for these changes were
natural factors such as steep slope, drought and Climate change. The human
driving forces for these changes steep slopes, drought and climate change.
The human driving factors include population growth and density, over-use
of land, farm size, land tenure status and land use. These factors exert
pressure and impacts on land use. Implications include biodiversity loss
central ownership of natural resources , the breakdown of traditional
structure and consequent difficulties in the use o fallow lands, open access
to grass lands, inability to protect and manage land resources , inappropriate
development strategies and la ck of land use planning.