Analysing past land use land cover change and CA-Markov-based future modelling in the Middle Suluh Valley, Northern Ethiopia

Abstract

This paper evaluates the past land use land cover (LULC) change and simulates the future change using Landsat images in northern Ethiopia. A supervised classification method with a maximum likelihood algorithm was employed to detect the past changes using ENVI 5.3 software. Moreover, a Cellular Automata (CA)-Makrov model was used to simulate from 2015 to 2030. In the period 1985–2015, the statistical result shows an increase of agricultural land (AL) by 32.3 km² (19.2%) and settlement (ST) by 51.6 km² (345.2%). Most of the increases were gained from shrub-bush land (SBL) which showed a decline of 61.8 km² (49.4%). However, in the simulation model of 2030, an increase of SBL (47.08 km²) and grass land by 12.38 km² was predicted. The consideration of socioeconomic and biophysical factors in the simulation model results different trend compare to the historical LULC change that support to landuse managers and planners.

Keywords:

• Land use land cover
• CA-Markov
• simulation
• Middle Suluh Valley
• Ethiopia

Acknowledgements

The corresponding author would like to thank Transdisciplinary Training for Resource Efficiency and Climate Change Adaptation in Africa (TRECCAfrica II) for providing him PhD scholarship to study at the Institute of Resources Assessment, University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Many thanks to the College of Social Sciences and Languages, Mekelle University for providing vehicle for fieldwork data collection. The corresponding author is also grateful to Mekelle University for granting research fund under registration number CRPO/CSSL/PhD/003/08; and to Association of African Universities (AAU) for awarding small grants for thesis writing. Finally, we thank the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on the earlier version of the manuscripts.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.