Investigating recent land use/land cover changes in Upper Tekeze river sub-basin, Ethiopia

Abstract Mapping trends in land use-landcover (LULC) changes of an area is necessary for a different application; including assessing hydrological regimes, processes, and changes. The study aims to quantify the recent and historical LULC changes in Upper Tekeze river basin. Image from Landsat of 1992 (TM), 2002 (TM), and 2018 (Landsat 8/OLI) was used to derive seven land use land cover class of Upper Tekeze basin, by using Remote Sensing (RS) and geographic information systems (GIS) using supervised classification. Transition matrix was applied to identify changes experienced. The result indicates that a significant change in LULC was experienced in the Upper Tekeze River basin in the last three decades (the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s). The predominant LULC types in the area were found to be agricultural land and cropland. Though there is an increment in agricultural land, the rate at which the area increased was declined over time. The gain for agricultural land was mostly from grassland and forest land. This resulted in an environmental problem such as the degradation of the land in the area. Unremitting conversion of the natural system (forest land, grassland, shrubland, and wetland) to agricultural land might contribute to soil loss and nutrient depletion, which in turn leads to diminishment of soil productivity, and biodiversity loss. The finding from this paper can be used as an input for assessing the impact of the changes in environmental stress in the basin.