Land Use and Land Cover Dynamics in Guraferda District, Southwest Ethiopia

In Ethiopia, land use land cover dynamics is one of the major environmental problems. Agricultural expansion has a great role on the changes of land use and land cover in southwest Ethiopian landscapes. This study was therefore carried out to examine the rate and pattern of land use/land cover changes in Guraferda district, southwest Ethiopia. Data was extracted from four periods of Landsat imagery (Landsat TM 1990, 2000, 2010, and Landsat OIL 2021) and used to analyze the historical land use and land cover changes. In addition, ground truth point data, field observations, and discussion with elders were also employed to validate results from remotely sensed data. ERDAS IMAGINE version 9.1 was used for image processing. The analysis extracted from these remote sensing data revealed that, in 1990, the dominant LULCs were forestland, grazing land and shrub land covering 41.6%, 29.4% and 28.3% of the total area, respectively with 0.64%, small coverage of agricultural land. However, land use analysis revealed an expansion of agriculture/settlement and reduction of forest and shrub land over the last 31 years (1990 to 2021). In the period 1990 to 2021the forest and shrub land use decreased by 425 and 1,200 ha/year, respectively, whereas agriculture/settlement and grassland increased by 820 and 518.2 ha/year, respectively. Plantation coffee also showed substantial expansion rate (287.7 ha/year) on the expense of forestland and shrub land between 2010 and 2021. Conversion from natural habitat (forestland and shrub land) to other land uses (agriculture/ settlement and coffee plantation) is likely to have a large impact on forest ecosystems and biodiversity. Therefore, better use of prevailing land resources needs appropriate land use policy improvement and strategic planning that ensure both economic gain and environmental welfares.