Impact of land use/cover changes on lake ecosystem of Ethiopia central rift valley

Central Rift Valley (CRV) Ethiopia is an important region in terms of its vast ecosystem services (ES)and enriched biodiversity. However, its ES and biodiversity are under terrific pressure from hurried population growth, unsustainable developmental activities, unplanned urbanization, aggressive agricultural expansion, climate change, and the associated changes in land use and land cover (LULC). This study was aimed at analyze LULC changes in the Ethiopia CRV areas from 1985 to 2015 through Geographic Information System (GIS) and Remote Sensing (RS) techniques. Satellite images were accessed, pre-processed and classified. Field observations, discussion with dwellers (elders) were also employed to validate results from remotely sensed data. Major LULC types were detected and change analysis was executed. Consequently, nine LULC changes were successfully evaluated. The classification result revealed that in 1985 the area was covered by 44.34% with small-scale farming followed by mixed cultivated/acacia (21.89%), open woodland (11.96%), and water bodies (9.77%), respectively. Though the area measure varied among land use classes, the trend of share occupied by the LULC types in the study area remained the same in 1995 and 2015. In this research increase in small and large-scale farming, settlements and mixed cultivation/acacia while a decrease in water bodies, forest, and open woodlands is noted. Accordingly, the overall accuracy of this study was 84.46, 86.86 and 88.86 with kapa value of 0.82, 0.84 and 0.87, respectively. Lastly, the DPSIR framework analysis was done and integrated land use and policy reform are suggested as a response for sustainable land use planning and management.