Land Use/Land Cover Dynamics and Anthropogenic Driving Factors in Lake Baringo Catchment, Rift Valley, Kenya

摘要

Anthropogenic activities ha ve altered land cover in Lake Baringo Catchment contributing to increased erosion and sediment transport into water bodies. The study aims at analyz ing the spatial and temporal Land Use and Land Cover Changes (LULCC) changes from 1988 to 2018 and to identify the main driving forces. GIS and Remote Sensing techniques, interviews and field observations were used to analyze the changes and drivers of LULCC from 1988-2018. The satellite imagery was selected from SPOT Image for the years 1988, 1998, 2008 and 2018. Environment for Visualizing Images (ENVI 5.3) was used to perform image analysis and classification. The catchment was classified into six major LULC classes which are water bodies, settlement, rangeland, vegetation, farmland and bare land. The results revealed that, between the years 1988-1998, and 1998-2008, water bodies decreased by 2.77% and 0.76% respectively. However, during the years 2008-2018, water body coverage increased by 1.87%. Forest cover steadily increased from 1988-2018. From 1988-1998, 1998-2008 and 2008-2018 , farmland was increased by 21.11%, 3.21% and 1.7% while rangeland decreased continuously between the years 1988-1998, 1998-2008 and 2008-2018 in the order 15.14%, 4.13% and 3.74% respectively. Similarly, b are land also reduced by 1.75%, 1.04% and 0.99% between the years 1988-1998, 1998-2008 and 2008-2018 respectively. The findings attributed LULCC to rapid population growth, deforestation, poor farming practices and overstocking. The results will provide valuable information to the relevant stakeholders to formulate evidence-based land use management strategies in order to achieve ecological integrity .