Land Use and Land Cover Change Detection Using Geospatial Technology; The Case of Ambo Woreda and its Surrounding

Abstract

The surface of the earth is undergoing rapid land-use/land-cover (LULC) changes due to various socioeconomic activities and natural phenomena.  Information on land use/land cover in the form of maps and statistical data is very important for spatial planning, management and utilization of the land. By studying the changes occurred in the past specific to land cover and urban development areas, one can understand how the ambo woreda and its surrounding has improved. This in turn will help to provide possible solutions to the existing problem in terms of rapid growth. LandSat data downloaded from United States Geological Survey website has several varieties of data among which the Thematic Mapper is preferred for this study.The aim of this project was to detect land use/land cover changes between 1995 to 2017 using satellite images of the area which is downloaded from USGS. Land use changes have been detected by image processing method in EDRAS imagine and ArcGIS software. For this purpose, firstly Image Classification of six reflective bands of two Landsat images was classifiedusing Maximum Likelihood method with the aid of ground truth obtained from Google earth. The second part focused on land use, land cover change detection comparison (pixel by pixel). Based on the results, it indicates that the severe land cover changes have occurred in settlement (27.88%) of the study area. The most important reason of the increment of the settlement was the population growth, expansion of town in the area,addition of different infrastructures, institutions etc.