Monitoring of land use/land-cover dynamics using remote sensing: a case of Tana River Basin, Kenya

Abstract

The present study assesses the spatio-temporal dynamics of land use/cover over a 28-year period in the upper Tana River Basin (TRB), Kenya using digital change detection techniques. The results indicate that during the last three decades, agricultural land and built-up area have increased by 32.57% (184,796 ha) and 26.35% (1460 ha) respectively, while open land, waterbodies and vegetation have decreased by 35.9%, 3.13% and 8.29% respectively. There was a huge expansion of agricultural land to marginal semi-arid and arid areas (lower part of the basin) over the period. The results of this study provide a better understanding of the spatial and temporal dynamics of the natural resources and form a basis for better planning and effective spatial organization. Such information can help various stakeholders including policy decision-makers in balancing development needs and river basin vital environmental systems protection and sustainability, especially in arid and semi-arid regions.

Keywords:

• Remote sensing
• water and agriculture
• spatio-temporal change detection
• ecosystem health
• Tana River Basin

Acknowledgements

No funding was available for this study. However, the University of New England provided postgraduate research support to the first author. We also thank the journal's anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments, whose help in improving the scientific quality of this manuscript is highly appreciated.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.