Abstract:
Forest resources are useful material that covered 30 percent of the earth surface which
provide valuable ecosystem services. The Rapid population growth of the world has
exerted pressure on the earth’s forest resources resulted in annual loss of 7.6 million ha
between 2010 and 2015. Therefore the main focus of this study was to detect and
analysis the magnitude and the rate of forest cover change of over last 32 years between
1985 1and 2017 with the integrated approach of GIS and remote sensing technologies.
“Landsat TM (1985 and 2001), and ETM +) were used for land use and land cover
analysis. A supervised classification was made using the maximum likelihood method in
ERDAS Imagine”. In order to examine the areal extent and rate of forest cover change
post classification change comparisons method and NDVI image differencing change
detection methods were employed with the arc GIS software. Land use land covers of the
study area were classified in to forest, Shrub land, farmland, settlement, grazing land and
fallow land. The finding of this study indicated one land use and land cover class
changed to another land use and land cover classes during the study period. Because of
this Forest resources of Goma woreda was decreased from 26649.99ha (30.73%) in 1985
to11569.05 (13.3%) in 2017 with the rate of change by 471.27ha per year. Based on key
informant and field observation data identify the following causes of deforestation
included Population growth, Expansion of agricultural land, fire wood and charcoal
production, removal of tree for constructional materials and timber production and
expansion of residential area. The impact of deforestation resulted for environmental
problems include loss of biodiversity, soil erosion and land degradation. Depending the
finding suggested that for the concerned bodies on creating awareness on forest
conservation, implementation of different agricultural technological inputs, adapted
alternative energy sources, reduced the growth through of family planning awareness
