The Role of Remote Sensing in Forest Cover Changes in Butambala District, Central Uganda
Abstract
Natural forests in Uganda have experienced changes which must be quantified to inform future forest resource management and avoid the danger of reduced ecosystem service benefits. The primary purpose of this study was to assess forest changes in Butambala District by employing remote sensing techniques and GIS tehniques. The original contribution is the capacity to detect Central Forest Reserve cover decline using remote sensing in the study area for a 27-year period (1995-2020). Landsat 5 and Sentinel 2 images were processed using a supervised image classification approach to identify and quantify land use/cover changes. The study results indicated that the district has undergone land cover/use changes over the last 27 years. The prevailing changes in the district from 1995 to 2022 were expansions of built-up areas from (0.54% to 4.22%), agriculture from (42.38% to 79%), and decreases in grassland from (29.9% to 0%), natural forest cover from (14.07% to 5.9%), wetland from (8.24% to 7.9%), tree plantation from (4.87% to 3.3%). The changes threaten the environment and quality of life of people. Therefore, there is need to take critical and practical measures to regulate land use and landcover changes and conserve natural resources in Butambala District
Downloads
References
Adesina, A., & Zinnah, M. M. (2009). This document is discoverable and free to researchers across the globe due to the work of AgEcon Search. Help ensure our sustainability. Journal of Gender, Agriculture and Food Security, 1(3), 1–22.
Afrane, Y. A., Githeko, A. K., & Yan, G. (2012). The ecology of Anopheles mosquitoes under climate change: Case studies from the effects of deforestation in East African highlands. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1249(1), 204– 210. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-6632.2011.06432.x
Andrew, M. E., Wulder, M. A., & Nelson, T. A. (2014). Potential contributions of remote sensing to ecosystem service assessments. Progress in Physical Geography, 38(3), 328–353.
Bala, G., Caldeira, K., Wickett, M., Phillips, T. J., Lobell, D. B., Delire, C., & Mirin, A. (2007). Combined climate and carbon-cycle effects of large-scale deforestation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(16), 6550–6555.
Bamwesigye, D., Doli, A., & Hlavackova, P. (2020). Redd+: An analysis of initiatives in east africa amidst increasing deforestation. European Journal of Sustainable Development, 9(2), 224.
Bamwesigye, D., Kupec, P., Chekuimo, G., Pavlis, J., Asamoah, O., Darkwah, S. A., & Hlaváčková, P. (2020). Charcoal and wood biomass utilization in Uganda: the socioeconomic and environmental dynamics and implications. Sustainability, 12(20), 8337.
Banana, A. Y., & Gombya-Ssembajjwe, W. (2000). Successful forest management: the importance of security of tenure and rule enforcement in Ugandan forests. People and Forests: Communities, Institutions, and Governance, 87–98.
Bernard, B., Anthony, E., Patrick, O., & Fridah, M. (2011). Dynamics of Land Use/Cover Trends in Kanungu District, South-western Uganda. Journal of Applied Sciences and Environmental Management, 14(4). https://doi.org/10.4314/jasem.v14i4.63260
Brouwer, F. M., Thomas, A. J., & Chadwick, M. J. (2012). Land use changes in Europe: processes of change, environmental transformations and future patterns (Vol. 18). Springer Science & Business Media.
Clark, M. (2012). Deforestation in Madagascar: Consequences of population growth and unsustainable agricultural processes. Global Majority E-Journal, 3(1), 61–71.
Deng, X., Zhao, C., & Yan, H. (2013). Systematic modeling of impacts of land use and land cover changes on regional climate: a review. Advances in Meteorology, 2013.
Dirmeyer, P. A., Niyogi, D., De Noblet-Ducoudré, N., Dickinson, R. E., & Snyder, P. K. (2010). Impacts of land use change on climate. International Journal of Climatology, 30(13), 1905–1907. https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.2157
Domadia, S. G., & Zaveri, T. (2011). Comparative analysis of unsupervised and supervised image classification techniques. Proceeding of National Conference on Recent Trends in Engineering & Technology, 1–5.
Ebel, P., Xu, Y., Schmitt, M., & Zhu, X. X. (2022). SEN12MS-CR-TS: A remote-sensing data set for multimodal multitemporal cloud removal. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 60, 1–14.
Egeru, A. S. (2014). Rural households’ fuelwood demand determinants in dryland areas of eastern Uganda. Energy Sources, Part B: Economics, Planning, and Policy, 9(1), 39–45.
Gebru, B., & Elofsson, K. (2023). The role of forest status in households’ fuel choice in Uganda. Energy Policy, 173, 113390.
Guzha, A. C., Rufino, M. C., Okoth, S., Jacobs, S., & Nóbrega, R. L. B. (2018). Impacts of land use and land cover change on surface runoff, discharge and low flows: Evidence from East Africa. Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies, 15(May 2017), 49–67. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejrh.2017.11.005
Jagger, P., & Kittner, N. (2017). Deforestation and biomass fuel dynamics in Uganda. Biomass and Bioenergy, 105, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biombioe.2017.06.005
Josephat, M. (2018). Deforestation in Uganda: population increase, forests loss and climate change. Environ Risk Assess Remediat, 2(2), 46-50.
Kayanja, F. I. B., & Byarugaba, D. (2001). Disappearing forests of Uganda: The way forward. Current Science, 81(8), 936–947.
Khanal, S., Fulton, J., & Shearer, S. (2017). An overview of current and potential applications of thermal remote sensing in precision agriculture. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, 139, 22–32.
Liu, Q., Gao, X., He, L., & Lu, W. (2017). Haze removal for a single visible remote sensing image. Signal Processing, 137, 33–43.
Lung, T., & Schaab, G. (2010). A comparative assessment of land cover dynamics of three protected forest areas in tropical eastern Africa. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, 161(1–4), 531–548. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-009-0766-3
Mainimo, E. N., Okello, D. M., Mambo, W., & Mugonola, B. (2022). Drivers of household demand for cooking energy: A case of Central Uganda. Heliyon, 8(3).
Mengistu Bahir, D., Mengistu, D. A., & Salami, A. T. (2007). Application of remote sensing and GIS inLand use/land cover mapping and change detection in a part of south western Nigeria. African Journal of Environmental Science and Technology, 1(5), 99–109. http://www.academicjournals.org/AJEST
Mwanjalolo, M. G. J., Bernard, B., Paul, M. I., Joshua, W., Sophie, K., Cotilda, N., Bob, N., John, D., Edward, S., & Barbara, N. (2018). Assessing the extent of historical, current, and future land use systems in Uganda. Land, 7(4), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.3390/land7040132
Nakileza, B. R., Majaliwa, M. J., Wandera, A., & Nantumbwe, C. M. (2017). Enhancing resilience to landslide disaster risks through rehabilitation of slide scars by local communities in Mt Elgon, Uganda. Jàmbá: Journal of Disaster Risk Studies, 9(1), 1–11.
Newbold, T., Hudson, L. N., Hill, S. L. L., Contu, S., Lysenko, I., Senior, R. A., Börger, L., Bennett, D. J., Choimes, A., & Collen, B. (2015). Global effects of land use on local terrestrial biodiversity. Nature, 520(7545), 45–50.
Nuwagira, U., Yasin, I., & Ikiriza, H. (2022). Review of Deforestation in Ugandan Tropical Rainforest Reserves: A Threat to Natural Medicine. East African Journal of Environment and Natural Resources, 5(1), 204–217. https://doi.org/10.37284/eajenr.5.1.742
Obua, J., Agea, J. G., & Ogwal, J. J. (2010). Status of forests in Uganda. African Journal of Ecology, 48(4), 853–859. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2028.2010.01217.x
Pan, H. (2020). Cloud removal for remote sensing imagery via spatial attention generative adversarial network. ArXiv Preprint ArXiv:2009.13015.
Pendrill, F., Persson, U. M., Godar, J., & Kastner, T. (2019). Deforestation displaced: Trade in forest-risk commodities and the prospects for a global forest transition. Environmental Research Letters, 14(5). https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab0d41
Pielke Sr, R. A., Pitman, A., Niyogi, D., Mahmood, R., McAlpine, C., Hossain, F., Goldewijk, K. K., Nair, U., Betts, R., & Fall, S. (2011). Land use/land cover changes and climate: modeling analysis and observational evidence. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 2(6), 828–850.
Rocchini, D., Boyd, D. S., Féret, J., Foody, G. M., He, K. S., Lausch, A., Nagendra, H., Wegmann, M., & Pettorelli, N. (2016). Satellite remote sensing to monitor species diversity: Potential and pitfalls. Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation, 2(1), 25–36.
Sassen, M., Sheil, D., Giller, K. E., & ter Braak, C. J. F. (2013). Complex contexts and dynamic drivers: Understanding four decades of forest loss and recovery in an East African protected area. Biological Conservation, 159, 257– 268. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2012.12.003
Ssentongo, A. A., Darkey, D., & Mutyaba, J. (2018). Detecting forest cover and ecosystem service change using integrated approach of remotely sensed derived indices in the central districts of Uganda. South African Journal of Geomatics, 7(1), 46. https://doi.org/10.4314/sajg.v7i1.4
Syampungani, S., Clendenning, J., Gumbo, D., Nasi, R., Moombe, K., Chirwa, P., Ribeiro, N., Grundy, I., Matakala, N., Martius, C., Kaliwile, M., Kabwe, G., & Petrokofsky, G. (2014). The impact of land use and cover change on above and below-ground carbon stocks of the miombo woodlands since the 1950s: A systematic review protocol. Environmental Evidence, 3(1), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1186/2047-2382-3-25
Twongyirwe, R., Bithell, M., Richards, K. S., & Rees, W. G. (2015a). Three decades of forest cover change in Uganda’s Northern Albertine Rift Landscape. Land Use Policy, 49, 236–251. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2015.07.013
Twongyirwe, R., Bithell, M., Richards, K. S., & Rees, W. G. (2015b). Three decades of forest cover change in Uganda’s Northern Albertine Rift Landscape. Land Use Policy, 49, 236–251.
Twongyirwe, R., Majaliwa, J., Ebanyat, P., Tenywa, M., Sheil, D., Heist, M., Oluka, M., & Kumar, L. (2011). Dynamics of forest cover conversion in and around Bwindi impenetrable forest, Southwestern Uganda. Journal of Applied Sciences and Environmental Management, 15(1). https://doi.org/10.4314/jasem.v15i1.68439
Uganda Bureau of Statistics, (UBOS). (2016). "National population and housing census 2014—main report,” Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS): Kampala, Uganda, 2016.
Usha, K., & Singh, B. (2013). Potential applications of remote sensing in horticulture—A review. Scientia Horticulturae, 153, 71–83.
Copyright (c) 2024 Sarah Namayengo, Upton Nuwagira
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
