scholarly journals Hydrological Responses to Land Use Land Cover Changes in the Fincha’a Watershed, Ethiopia

Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 916
Author(s):  
Urgessa Kenea ◽  
Dereje Adeba ◽  
Motuma Shiferaw Regasa ◽  
Michael Nones

Land use land cover (LULC) changes are highly pronounced in African countries, as they are characterized by an agriculture-based economy and a rapidly growing population. Understanding how land use/cover changes (LULCC) influence watershed hydrology will enable local governments and policymakers to formulate and implement effective and appropriate response strategies to minimize the undesirable effects of future land use/cover change or modification and sustain the local socio-economic situation. The hydrological response of the Ethiopia Fincha’a watershed to LULCC that happened during 25 years was investigated, comparing the situation in three reference years: 1994, 2004, and 2018. The information was derived from Landsat sensors, respectively Landsat 5 TM, Landsat 7 ETM, and Landsat 8 OLI/TIRS. The various LULC classes were derived via ArcGIS using a supervised classification system, and the accuracy assessment was done using confusion matrixes. For all the years investigated, the overall accuracies and the kappa coefficients were higher than 80%, with 2018 as the more accurate year. The analysis of LULCC revealed that forest decreased by 20.0% between the years 1994–2004, and it decreased by 11.8% in the following period 2004–2018. Such decline in areas covered by forest is correlated to an expansion of cultivated land by 16.4% and 10.81%, respectively. After having evaluated the LULCC at the basin scale, the watershed was divided into 18 sub-watersheds, which contained 176 hydrologic response units (HRUs), having a specific LULC. Accounting for such a detailed subdivision of the Fincha’a watershed, the SWAT model was firstly calibrated and validated on past data, and then applied to infer information on the hydrological response of each HRU on LULCC. The modelling results pointed out a general increase of average water flow, both during dry and wet periods, as a consequence of a shift of land coverage from forest and grass towards settlements and build-up areas. The present analysis pointed out the need of accounting for past and future LULCC in modelling the hydrological responses of rivers at the watershed scale.

Author(s):  
Urgessa Kenea ◽  
Dereje Adeba ◽  
Motuma Shiferaw Regasa ◽  
Michael Nones

Land use land cover (LULC) changes are highly pronounced in African countries, as they are characterized by an agriculture-based economy and a rapidly growing population. Understanding how land use/cover change (LULCC) influence watershed hydrology will enable local governments and policymakers to formulate and implement effective and appropriate response strategies to minimize the undesirable effects of future land use/cover change or modification and sustain the local socio-economic situation. The hydrological response of the Ethiopia Fincha’a watershed to LULCC happened during the last 30 years was investigated comparing the situation in three reference years: 1994, 2004 and 2018. The information was derived from Landsat sensors, respectively Landsat 5 TM, Landsat 7 ETM and Landsat 8 OLI/TIRS. The various LULC classes were derived via ArcGIS using a supervised classification system, and the accuracy assessment was done using confusion matrixes. For all the years investigated the overall accuracies and the kappa coefficients were higher than 80%, with 2018 as the more accurate year. The analysis of LULCC revealed that forest decreased by 19.99% between the years 1994-2004, and it decreased by 11.85% in the following period 2004-2018. Such decline in areas covered by forest is correlated to an expansion of cultivated land by 16.4% and 10.81%, respectively. After having evaluated the LULCC at the basin scale, the watershed was divided into 18 sub-watersheds, which contained 176 Hydrologic Response Units (HRUs), having a specific LULC. Accounting for such a detailed subdivision of the Fincha’a watershed, the SWAT model was firstly calibrated and validated on past data, and then applied to infer information on the hydrological response of each HRU on LULCC. The modelling results pointed out a general increase of average water flow, both during dry and wet periods, as a consequence of a shift of land coverage from forest and grass towards settlements and build-up areas. The present analysis pointed out the need of accounting for past and future LULCC in modelling the hydrological responses of rivers at the watershed scale.


Author(s):  
Qijiao Xie ◽  
Qi Sun

Aerosols significantly affect environmental conditions, air quality, and public health locally, regionally, and globally. Examining the impact of land use/land cover (LULC) on aerosol optical depth (AOD) helps to understand how human activities influence air quality and develop suitable solutions. The Landsat 8 image and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aerosol products in summer in 2018 were used in LULC classification and AOD retrieval in this study. Spatial statistics and correlation analysis about the relationship between LULC and AOD were performed to examine the impact of LULC on AOD in summer in Wuhan, China. Results indicate that the AOD distribution expressed an obvious “basin effect” in urban development areas: higher AOD values concentrated in water bodies with lower terrain, which were surrounded by the high buildings or mountains with lower AOD values. The AOD values were negatively correlated with the vegetated areas while positively correlated to water bodies and construction lands. The impact of LULC on AOD varied with different contexts in all cases, showing a “context effect”. The regression correlations among the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), normalized difference built-up index (NDBI), normalized difference water index (NDWI), and AOD in given landscape contexts were much stronger than those throughout the whole study area. These findings provide sound evidence for urban planning, land use management and air quality improvement.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 3421 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rahel Hamad ◽  
Heiko Balzter ◽  
Kamal Kolo

Multi-temporal Landsat images from Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper (TM) acquired in 1993, 1998, 2003 and 2008 and Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) from 2017, are used for analysing and predicting the spatio-temporal distributions of land use/land cover (LULC) categories in the Halgurd-Sakran Core Zone (HSCZ) of the National Park in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. The aim of this article was to explore the LULC dynamics in the HSCZ to assess where LULC changes are expected to occur under two different business-as-usual (BAU) assumptions. Two scenarios have been assumed in the present study. The first scenario, addresses the BAU assumption to show what would happen if the past trend in 1993–1998–2003 has continued until 2023 under continuing the United Nations (UN) sanctions against Iraq and particularly Kurdistan region, which extended from 1990 to 2003. Whereas, the second scenario represents the BAU assumption to show what would happen if the past trend in 2003–2008–2017 has to continue until 2023, viz. after the end of UN sanctions. Future land use changes are simulated to the year 2023 using a Cellular Automata (CA)-Markov chain model under two different scenarios (Iraq under siege and Iraq after siege). Four LULC classes were classified from Landsat using Random Forest (RF). Their accuracy was evaluated using κ and overall accuracy. The CA-Markov chain method in TerrSet is applied based on the past trends of the land use changes from 1993 to 1998 for the first scenario and from 2003 to 2008 for the second scenario. Based on this model, predicted land use maps for the 2023 are generated. Changes between two BAU scenarios under two different conditions have been quantitatively as well as spatially analysed. Overall, the results suggest a trend towards stable and homogeneous areas in the next 6 years as shown in the second scenario. This situation will have positive implication on the park.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (23) ◽  
pp. 13041
Author(s):  
Yuechao Chen ◽  
Makoto Nakatsugawa

The 2018 Hokkaido Eastern Iburi earthquake and its landslides threaten the safety and stability of the Atsuma River basin. This study investigates land use and land cover (LULC) change by analyzing the 2015 and 2020 LULC maps of the basin, and its impact on runoff and sediment transport in the basin by using the soil and water assessment tool (SWAT) model to accurately simulate the runoff and sediment transport process. This study finds that the earthquake and landslide transformed nearly 10% of the forest into bare land in the basin. The simulation results showed that the runoff, which was simulated based on the 2020 LULC data, was slightly higher than that based on the 2015 LULC data, and the sediment transport after the earthquake is significantly higher than before. The rate of sediment transportation after the earthquake, adjusted according to the runoff, was about 3.42 times more than before. This shows that as the forest land decreased, the bare land increased. Conversely, the runoff increased slightly, whereas the sediment transport rate increased significantly in the Atsuma River basin after the earthquake. In future, active governance activities performed by humans can reduce the amount of sediment transport in the basin.


Author(s):  
Ajagbe, Abeeb Babajide ◽  
Oguntade, Sodiq Solagbade ◽  
Abiade, Idunnu Temitope

Land use assessment and land cover transition need remote sensing (RS) and geographic information systems (GIS). Land use/land cover changes of Ado-Ekiti Local Government Area, Ekiti State, Nigeria, were examined in this research. Landsat 5 TM, Landsat 7 ETM+ and Landsat 8 OLI were acquired for 1985, 2000, and 2015 respectively. Image scene with path 190 and row 055 was used for the three Landsat Images. A supervised digital image classification approach was used in the study, which was carried out using the ArcMap 10.4 Software. Five land use/land cover categories were recognised and recorded as polygons, including Built-up Areas, Bare surface, water body, Dense Vegetation and Sparse Vegetation. The variations in the area covered by the various polygons were measured in hectares. This study revealed that between 1985 and 2015, there was a significant change in Built-up areas from 1694 hectares to 5656 hectares. However, there was a reduction in water body from 25 hectares in 1985 to 19 hectares in 2015; there was a severe reduction in the bare surface from 4641 hectares in 1985 to 2237 hectares in 2015. Generally, the findings show that the number of people building houses in the study area has grown over time, as many people reside in the outskirts of the Local Government Area, resulting in a decrease in the vegetation and bare surfaces. The maps created in this research will be useful to the Ekiti State Ministry of Land, Housing, Physical Planning, and Urban Development to develop strategies and government policies to benefit people living in the Ado-Ekiti Local Government Area of the State.


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