Land Use Change Detection as an Initial Stage in Environmental Impact Assessment on the Zambian Copperbelt

摘要

Copper has been exploited in Zambia for much of this century. As population pressure on the natural resource base in the Copperbelt has Increased, environmental impacts arising from mining and other Industries have become less acceptable. An assessment of environmental impacts must measure changes in natural resources. Developing countries lack the extensive environmental databases required for comprehensive environmental impact assessment. In Zambia, up-to-date maps are scarce and so recourse is made to satellite remote sensing. Land use classes are identified using a combination of published maps, aerial photography, satellite images acquired by Landsat and field verification. Through edge-enhancement, the generation of false colour composites and supervised classification, land use classes are quantified for images acquired in 1972,19841989,1997 and 1998. Trends in the data are interpreted and the implications for the environment are discussed.