Assessment of Land Use and Land Cover Change Dynamics and Drivers in Mbagathi River Catchment in Kajiado County, Kenya
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Date
2024-02
Authors
Munyoki, Faith
Makokha, Mary
Obiero, Kennedy
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Scientific Research Publishing
Abstract
Land use and land cover change through human modifications has brought
great changes at global, regional and local levels part of which poses a threat
to human and environmental systems. Monitoring of these changes is necessary to ensure the sustainability of terrestrial ecosystems such as the Mbagathi
River catchment. The study sought to determine the land use and land cover
changes and drivers in the Mbagathi River catchment for the period 1990-2020.
This was achieved by the classification of multitemporal Landsat imageries of
1990, 2000, 2010 and 2020 using the Google Earth Engine web platform. The
study established four main land use/cover classes including forest, grassland,
urban and bare ground. The results of the classification and analysis process
established that forest cover reduced from 32% to 14%, grassland reduced
from 53% to 30%, bare ground increased from 10% to 38% and urban land
cover increased from 4% to 17%. This revealed that urban and bare ground
land covers increased at the expense of forest and grassland covers. Multitemporal and spatial assessment of settlement observed that more settlements
emerged around the key urban centres namely Kiserian, Ongata Rongai,
Ngong, Mlolongo and Tuala. Further analysis within a 3 Km radius of the
towns revealed that urban area increased by 11% and 19% for Tuala and Kiserian respectively while in Ongata Rongai and Ngong, the urban area increased by 20% and 23% respectively
Description
Article
Keywords
Land Use, Land Cover, Google Earth Engine
Citation
Munyoki, F., Makokha, M., & Obiero, K. (2024). Assessment of Land Use and Land Cover Change Dynamics and Drivers in Mbagathi River Catchment in Kajiado County, Kenya. Open Access Library Journal, 11(2), 1-12.