Spatiotemporal Analysis of Land-use and Land-cover Dynamics of Adama District, Ethiopia and its Implication to Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Uncontrolled change in land use and land cover (LULC) enhances the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This study, therefore, is aimed at the spatiotemporal analysis of LULC dynamics and their implications for the greenhouse gas emissions of the Adama district of Ethiopia. The dry season Landsat image Thematic Mapper (TM) of 1986, Enhanced Thematic Mapper (ETM) of 2000, and Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) of 2014 were downloaded from the United States Geological Survey Global Visualization Viewer Website and employed. The hybrid classification approach was performed after the preprocessing of the image. Moreover, observations, key informant interviews, and focus group discussions were used. The analysis was carried out using the image data and survey data. The result indicates that agricultural land and shrub and bush lands covered 80.98%, 76.75%, and 74.42% of the study area during 1986, 2000, and 2014, respectively. Although there were differences in the magnitudes and rates of change during the considered years, the LULC classification results of this study indicated that most natural environments are converted to human-dominated environments, which can be attributed to human-induced activities. Due to this conversion, environmental degradation is aggravated, which again paves the way for the increased concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The study concludes that, largely as a result of interventions from the communities living in the area, the study area is being transformed from the natural ecosystem to a managed environment. Hence, the practices of smallholder farmers with respect to protected areas, afforestation, and reforestation must be strengthened and supported by an integrated policy framework. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2019;00:1-13. (c) 2019 SETAC