Modeling spatio temporal pattern of urban land use and land cover change by using geospatial technology: a case of Shambu Town, Horo Guduru Wallaga, Ethiopia

Metropolitan and town planners in Ethiopia are dealing with high racial tensions concerned about the high rate of urban expansion which is posing a challenge to get efficient urban planning. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate urban land use and land cover (LULC) changes in Shambu Town over the past three decades and to forecast the futurity of urban expansion. The LULC classification was performed by using supervised classification with maximum likelihood from Landsat images of 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2020. The rapid rise of the urban population is a source of urban expansion. According to the study, every LULC type in the study area has been transformed from one LULC to another types. The result shows that agriculture, forest, and grassland land cover declined by 217.2 ha, 39 ha, and 54.8 ha, respectively, in the study area from 1990 to 2020. However, the built-up area increased by 311 ha within the past three decades. However, over the study period, agriculture and grassland both decreased by 474.7 ha and 66.3 ha, respectively. From LULC types of the study area, built-up area and forest land will be expanded by an area of 1064.3 ha and 170.5 ha respectively, in the coming 2050. Based on the finding of this study, we suggested that urban planners, land administration and management offices, environmental protection offices, and other stakeholders can investigate the impacts of LULC change and urban expansion on natural resources and ecological service systems, as well as the impact on people's livelihoods in the future for natural and land resource management.