Assessment of Land Cover and Land Use Change Dynamics in Kibwezi Watershed, Kenya.

ScientificWorldJournal

Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization, Kaptagat Road, Loresho, P.O. Box 57811, Nairobi 00200, Kenya.

Published: December 2022

AI Article Synopsis

  • Land use and land cover (LULC) are critical factors affecting hydrological and ecological processes in watersheds, making it important to understand their changes for effective water resource management.
  • The study focused on analyzing LULC changes in the Kibwezi watershed, Kenya, using remote sensing and GIS techniques on Landsat imagery from 1999, 2009, and 2019, resulting in ten classified LULC categories.
  • Significant increases were observed in shrub grassland, urban areas, and crop/shrub areas, with drastic percentage increases over the years, indicating a detrimental impact on watershed resources and the necessity for improved management strategies for sustainable development.

Article Abstract

Land use and land cover (LULC) parameters influence the hydrological and ecological processes taking place in a watershed. Understanding the changes in LULC is essential in the planning and development of management strategies for water resources. The purpose of the study was to detect changes in LULC in the Kibwezi watershed in Kenya, using geospatial approaches. Supervised and unsupervised classification techniques using remote sensing (RS) and geographical information system (GIS) were used to process Landsat imagery for 1999, 2009, and 2019 while ERDAS IMAGINE™ 14 and MS Excel software were used to derive change detection, and the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model was used to delineate the watershed using an in-built watershed delineation tool. The watershed was classified into ten major LULC classes, namely cropland (rainfed), cropland (irrigated), cropland (perennial), crop and shrubs/trees, closed shrublands, open shrubland, shrub grasslands, wooded shrublands, riverine woodlands, and built-up land. The results showed that LULC under shrub grassland, urban areas, and crops and shrubs increased drastically by 552.5%, 366.2%, and 357.1% respectively between 1999 and 2019 with an annual increase of 35.55%, 35.38%, and 33.86% per annum. The area under open shrubland and closed shrubland declined by73.7%, and 30.4% annually. These LULC transformations pose a negative impact on the watershed resources. There is therefore a need for proper management of the watershed for sustainable socio-economic development of the Kibwezi area.

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Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9763003PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2022/3944810DOI Listing

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