Department of Natural Resource Management, Wachemo University, P.O. Box 667, Hosanna, Ethiopia.
Center for Environmental Science, College of Natural and Computational Sciences, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
ScientificWorldJournal. 2021 Feb 18;2021:9470918. doi: 10.1155/2021/9470918. eCollection 2021.
Land use change is one of the challenges that aggravate environmental problems. Understanding the scope of land use change, driving forces, and consequences is very crucial for proper management of land resources. We investigated land use/land cover changes using remote sensing data (for the years 1973, 1995, and 2017), and field observation, household survey, key informant interview, and focus group discussion were used to determine the drivers and consequences of land use/land cover changes in Shenkolla watershed, south central Ethiopia. Unsupervised and supervised classification techniques were employed to get thematic information from satellite imagery. ArcGIS 10.3 and QGIS v 3.0 softwares were used to accomplish the analysis. The results disclosed that Shenkolla watershed has changed significantly during the past 4 decades between 1973 and 2017. This observed change indicates a reduction in forest land and an increase in agricultural land. Forest land was reduced from 29.51% in 1973 to 20.52% in 2017, but agricultural land was expanded from 70.49% in 1973 to 79.48% in 2017. Agricultural expansion, policy change and social unrest, population pressure, shortage of farm land, and biophysical factors were major driving forces of the LU/LC changes. Environmental implications such as climate change, biodiversity loss, scarcity of basic forest products, habitat alteration, decline in quality and availability of water, and crop yield reduction are the consequences of the LU/LC change. The expansion of agricultural land at the expense of forest cover in Shenkolla watershed has negative implications on the natural resources and the livelihood of local people. Hence, appropriate measures need to be employed to reduce the dramatic change in land use and to harmonize environmental conservation with human livelihood.
土地利用变化是加剧环境问题的挑战之一。了解土地利用变化的范围、驱动力和后果对于土地资源的合理管理至关重要。我们利用遥感数据（1973 年、1995 年和 2017 年）以及实地观测、入户调查、关键信息人访谈和焦点小组讨论，调查了土地利用/土地覆盖变化，以确定埃塞俄比亚中南部申科拉流域土地利用/土地覆盖变化的驱动因素和后果。使用非监督和监督分类技术从卫星图像中获取专题信息。ArcGIS 10.3 和 QGIS v 3.0 软件用于完成分析。结果表明，在过去的 40 年里，申科拉流域发生了显著的变化。这种变化表明，林地减少，农业用地增加。林地从 1973 年的 29.51%减少到 2017 年的 20.52%，而农业用地从 1973 年的 70.49%扩大到 2017 年的 79.48%。农业扩张、政策变化和社会动荡、人口压力、耕地短缺、以及生物物理因素是土地利用/土地覆盖变化的主要驱动力。土地利用/土地覆盖变化的环境影响包括气候变化、生物多样性丧失、基本森林产品短缺、生境改变、水质和可用性下降以及作物产量减少。申科拉流域农业用地的扩张以森林覆盖为代价，对当地自然资源和人民的生计产生了负面影响。因此，需要采取适当的措施来减少土地利用的急剧变化，协调环境保护与人类生计。
