Temporal Changes in Land Cover and Land Use types in Simen Mountain National Park, Northern Ethiopia

Abstract

The present study was conducted in Simen Mountain National Park(SMNP) of Ethiopia to record the temporal changes in land use and land cover types. It involves a pixel to pixel comparison of the study year images through overlay analysis. Information was generated from landsat images and geo-referenced topographic maps of SMNP. Field observations were made to obtain ground control points for georeferencing the images. Representative samples were taken from grassland, montane and Erica forests, barren and agricultural land. The results of the current study reveals that the greater percent of land cover and land use was recorded from grassland followed by montane and Erica forest for the entire study period. All land cover classes exhibited variable extent of changes over the study period. In the first reference period (1972 - 1994), agricultural (9945.56 ha) and barren land (3066.6 ha) showed a remarkable increase at theexpense of other land use types whereas montane forest (8040.69 ha), Ericaforest (5446.3 ha), grassland (13693 ha) and shadow (1792.5 ha) showed shrinkage. In the second reference period (1994 - 2013), montane forest, grassland and shadow showed increasing trend with the dramatic change in grassland at the expense of agricultural land. Erica forest and agricultural land showed a decreasing tendency witha dramatic shrinkage in agricultural land. In the first reference period (1972 - 1994), maximum negative rate of change was observed for Ericaforest which decelerated with a rate of 83 ha/year and further decreased in the second reference period (1994 - 2013) with dwindling rate of change 16.6 ha/year. Maximum positive rate of change (74.6 ha/year) was observed for agricultural land followed by barren land (68.6 ha/year). In the second referenceperiod maximum positive rate of change was observed for grassland with accelerated rate of change 260.5 ha/year whereas maximum deceleration rate (272.8 ha/year) was observed for agricultural land. At present, there has been an increase in the area coverage of montane forest and little decrease of Ericaforest compared to the previous period. On the other side, there is impressive decrease in agricultural land. These changes contribute for the restoration of the ecosystems of SMNP. However, intensified grazing was identified as a principal driver affecting ecological process in the Park; therefore, a long term strategy should be designed for the gradual reductionof grazing to meet the sustainable utilization of natural resources in the Park.