GIS and Remote Sensing Based Analysis of Forest Cover Change Detection: a Case of Goma Woreda, Jimma Zone South West of Ethiopia

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