Open AccessLand Use and Land Cover Change as an Indicator of Watershed Urban Development in the Kenyan Lake Victoria Basin
Author(s) -
Dancan Otieno Onyango,
C.O. Ikporukpo,
Olalekan John Taiwo,
Stephen Balaka Opiyo
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
international journal of sustainable development and planning
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.29
H-Index - 15
eISSN - 1743-761X
pISSN - 1743-7601
DOI - 10.18280/ijsdp.160213
Subject(s) - land use , land cover , urbanization , geography , land development , watershed , agricultural land , vegetation (pathology) , threatened species , structural basin , agriculture , water resource management , hydrology (agriculture) , environmental science , ecology , medicine , paleontology , geotechnical engineering , archaeology , pathology , machine learning , habitat , computer science , engineering , biology
The socio-economic and ecological value of Lake Victoria is threatened by significant regional development and urbanization. This study analyzed spatial-temporal land use/land cover changes in the Kenyan Lake Victoria basin from 1978–2018 using Landsat 3, 4-5 and 8 imagery, with a view to identifying the extent and potential impacts of urbanization on the basin. Supervised image classification was undertaken following the Maximum Likelihood algorithm to generate land use/land cover maps at ten-year intervals. Results indicate that the basin is characterized by six main land use/land cover classes namely, agricultural land, water bodies, grasslands and vegetation, bare land, forests and built-up areas. Further, the results indicate that the basin has experienced net increases in built-up areas (+97.56%), forests (+17.30%) and agricultural land (+3.54%) over the last 40 years. During the same period, it experienced net losses in grassland and vegetation (-37.36%), bare land (-9.28%) and water bodies (-2.19%). Generally, the changing landscapes in the basin are characterized by conversion of natural environments to built-up environments and driven by human activities, urban populations and public policy decisions. The study therefore recommends the establishment of a land use system that creates a balance between the ecological realm and sustainable development.