URBAN LANDSCAPE CHANGE AND MEASURING URBAN SPRAWL USING SPATIO-TEMPORAL TECHNIQUES THE CASE OF JIMMA CITY, SOUTHWESTERN ETHIOPIA

ABSTRACT Landscape we look for two features: one is an expression of landscape nature specifics; the other is development of maximum landscape opportunities for adjustment to the human being’s needs. The present research investigated landscape change and urban sprawl using spatio-temeporal techniques in Jimma city, western Ethiopia. Hence, the study was analyzed by: (i) assessing the trends of land use land cover change, (ii) identifying the landscape patterns of urban expansion and (iii) determine the direction of urban sprawling using Shannon entropy method of the study area since, 1991. For this study the researcher used land sat image, SPOT image and sentinel image from 1991, 2006 and 2019 respectively. In order to quantifying LULC (land use land cover) changes Maximum likelihood supervised classification methods was employed to create the signature class of the main four land cover classes: built up, vegetation, open area and agricultural area. The analysis result revealed that, built up area was the dominant changed land use class from 1991-2019 by 195.99%. This change was most of the time driven by urban population growth and changes of the government policy. In other hand, agricultural and open area were the dominant changes of decline land use class with value of 50.49% and 31.83% from 1991 study period respectively. As the result indicates patterns of urban expansion more shown following the road network. Predominantly, patterns of urban expansion was notable in north, northeast, southeast direction. The results of Shannon’s entropy also shows urban sprawling was increased from 1991-to-2019 in terms of direction. The result revealed that, dramatically urban sprawling had shown more in the study period of 2006. This dramatic change of sprawling is often associated with rapid urban population growth with Unplanned/ week urban planning implementation and changes of government policy. The occurrence of urban sprawl is the common problems particularly in the periphery of study area far from city center. In order to solve this problem, the municipality should be implement proper urban planning to the ground. In addition to this, I would like to invite the researchers conducting for sooner/later study including household survey of causal factors for urban sprawl and modeling for the future.