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Impacts of land use and land cover change on surface runoff, discharge and low flows : Evidence from East Africa

In the last decades, due to climate changes, soil deterioration, and Land Use/Land Cover Changes (LULCCs), land degradation risk has become one of the most important ecological issues at the global level. Land degradation involves two interlocking systems: the natural ecosystem and the socio-economic system. The complexity of land degradation processes should be addressed using a multidisciplinary approach. Therefore, the aim of this work is to assess diachronically land degradation dynamics under changing land covers. This paper analyzes LULCCs and the parallel increase in the level of land sensitivity to degradation along the coastal belt of Sardinia (Italy), a typical Mediterranean region where human pressure affects the landscape characteristics through fires, intensive agricultural practices, land abandonment, urban sprawl, and tourism concentration. Results reveal that two factors mainly affect the level of land sensitivity to degradation in the study area: (i) land abandonment and (ii) unsustainable use of rural and peri-urban areas. Taken together, these factors represent the primary cause of the LULCCs observed in coastal Sardinia. By linking the structural features of the Mediterranean landscape with its functional land degradation dynamics over time, these results contribute to orienting policies for sustainable land management in Mediterranean coastal areas.

The impact of land use/land cover changes on land degradation dynamics: a Mediterranean case study.

Land degradation is a global issue receiving much attention currently. In order to objectively reveal the research situation of land degradation, bibliometrix and biblioshiny software packages have been used to conduct data mining and quantitative analysis on research papers in the fields of land degradation during 1990–2019 (data update time was 8 April 2019) in the Web of Science core collection database. The results show that: (1) during the past 20 years, the number of papers on land degradation has increased. According to the number of articles, it is divided into four stages: a low-production exploration period, a developmental sprout period, expansion of the promotion period, and a high-yield active period. (2) Land-degradation research covers 93 countries or regions. The top five countries in terms of research volume are China, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Australia. China, the United States, and the United Kingdom are the most important countries for international cooperation in the field of land degradation. However, cooperation between countries is not very close overall. (3) Land degradation, degradation, desertification, remote sensing, soil erosion, and soil degradation are high-frequency keywords in the field of land degradation in recent years. (4) The research hotspots in the field of land degradation mainly focus on research directions such as restoration and reconstruction of land degradation, and sustainable management of land resources. (5) The themes of various periods in the field of land degradation are diversified, and the evolutionary relationship is complex. There are 15 evolutionary paths with regard to dynamic monitoring of land degradation, environmental governance of land degradation, and responses of land degradation to land-use change. Finally, the paper concludes that the research directions on land degradation in future include the process, mechanism, and effect of land degradation, the application of new technologies, new monitoring methods for land degradation, theory enhancement, methods and models of ecological restoration, reconstruction of degraded land, multidisciplinary integrated system research, constructing a policy guarantee system for the reconstruction of degraded land, and strengthening research on land resource engineering.

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A Bibliometric Analysis on Land Degradation: Current Status, Development, and Future Directions

Exploring land use/land cover changes, drivers and their implications in contrasting agro-ecological environments of Ethiopia

Analysing the trend of land use/land cover change and its cause and consequence on human livelihoods as well as on the environment is a matter of concern for sustainable development and management of natural resource. Retrospective analysis of land use/land cover dynamics and its driving force has been undertaken using satellite images of Landsat5 TM 1984, Landsat5 TM 1999, and Landsat8 TM 2015 with 30 m spacial resolution for Beressa watershed of Ethiopia. ArcGIS10.2.2 and ERDAS Imagine14 have been used for image processing to produce 6 land uses/land cover classes in the study area. The result of classified image indicated that in the last 3 decades, farm land and settlement area increased @ 71.6 ha/year and 16.8 ha/year respectively. Between 1984 and 1999, forest cover and water body decreased @ 5 ha/year and 0.03 ha/year respectively but increased @15.6 ha/year and 7.1 ha/year between 1999 and 2015 respectively. This increase could be possible due to the involvement of local communities to plant trees around their homestead and farm lands. In this program, plantation of indigenous tree species other than eucalyptus (which affect the ecology) was encouraged. The % share of grazing land and barren land has been decreased to 10 and 10.1 % respectively during 1999 that further reduced to 6.1 and 5.2 % during 2015 as against the 12.4 and 13.1 % during 1984 respectively in the Beressa watershed. Rapid population growth demanded more land for cultivation, more trees for domestic fuelwood consumption and more area for settlement had been responsible for drastic change in the land use/land cover change in the last 3 decades in the Beressa watershed. In order to check the loss of area from gazing land and barren land, alternative source income opportunities to the community dwellers may be provided. Therefore, environmental conservation, management and rehabilitation require integrated approach of community development at various levels.

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Analyses of land use and land cover change dynamics using GIS and remote sensing during 1984 and 2015 in the Beressa Watershed Northern Central Highland of Ethiopia

Land use changes in East Africa have transformed land cover to farmlands, grazing lands, human settlements and urban centers at the expense of natural vegetation. These changes are associated with deforestation, biodiversity loss and land degradation. A synthesis of results of long term research by an interdisciplinary team reveals the linkages between land use change, biodiversity loss and land degradation. The results indicate that as native vegetation is lost, indigenous plant and animal biodiversity and plant cover are lost. Pastoralism maintains native plant and animal species more effectively than crop cultivation. As croplands expand, soil fertility and moisture drops and soils erode more easily. Farmers who grow many crops conserve native plant species better than those who grow only one crop. Increased crop diversity encourages regeneration of indigenous plant species. Moderate farming as in the less intensive low input rainfed mixed crop farming, in less forested areas increases tree cover thus increasing the biodiversity. Farmers’ who combine livestock rearing with cropping, use livestock manure to replenish soil nutrients in their farms and are thus able to maintain higher productivity. Farming in grasslands, woodlands and bushland areas where there are fewer trees, increases the diversity of habitats due to introduction of agrosystems that attract new species of birds. However, if the farming is intensified and the diversity of habitats is reduced biodiversity is also reduced. This paper presents findings of the investigations on these linkages in a diverse farming and herding systems ranging from lowlands to high mountains land uses.

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Stephen Mathai

Papers

The linkages between land use change, land degradation and biodiversity across East Africa.