Land Useland Cover Dynamics And Soil Degradation Assessement Using Remote Sensing And Gis A Case Study Of Jima Arjo Woreda (western Ethiopia)

This study is aimed at assessing the spatio-temporal dynamics of land use/ land cover and soilrndegradation in Jima Arjo Woreda. Three different time landsat images (1973, 1986 and 2001)rnwere classified into 7 major land use/cover classes through supervised classification: farm land,rndense forest land, degraded forest land, open woodland, grassland, wet land and bare land.rnPost-classification change detection among the image data has been conducted. Accordingly,rnfarmland and bare land has expanded with 15326.6ha and 769.897ha, respectively. Although thernexpansion is not continuous; open woodland increased by 6825.2ha and grassland by 6392.4harnover the period. However, vegetations particularly dense forest and the degraded forest land andrnwetlands were reduced greatly at varying rates of change per annum. Dense forest dropped downrnby 1686.5ha, degraded forest land reduced by 4264.7 and wetland by 8184.1ha.rnLand use/cover distribution across various slope categories and susceptibility to change has alsornassessed from the final state of the study period (2001) image data. With respect to landrnuse/cove – slope distribution, steep slopes were made cultural landscapes (agricultural andrnsettlement areas). Farm lands, particularly the intensively cultivated farms, were evident onrnsteep slopes (above 250) and more than 60% of slopes above 120 were shared by the farmlands.rnFive levels of susceptibility to change: extremely susceptible, highly susceptible, moderately,rnlow and none susceptible areas have been identified based on factors of accessibility, proximityrnto towns and rivers, agroclimate, soil, slope and the type of land cover in the area. Vegetationsrnare signified as the most susceptible classes. This has been realized in that 94.1% of the high tornextremely high susceptibility level has been shared by dense forests.rnSoil Loss has been estimated using USLE model on the basis of the adapted methodology andrnparameters for Ethiopian highland conditions. The estimated soil loss for the study area rangesrnfrom 0.35 – 184.4t/ha/yr with mean annual loss of 20.6t/ha. Highly sever soil loss (>60t/ha/yr)rnhas been recognized over 5.9% in the area. This is more evident on the farm lands. The low soilrnloss (

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