Spatio-temporal Analysis of Changes in Land Use-Land Cover for Conservation Efficacy of Urban Forest Reserve: The Case of Rau Forest Reserve, Tanzania
Abstract
Changes in land use and land cover in different places around the globe have a significant impact on ecological structure and functions. Analysis of land use and land cover is useful in management activities, especially forest reserves as it reflects the interaction between adjacent communities and natural resources. We conducted a study to explore the changes in land use and land cover in the Rau Forest reserve to show the management status of this ecosystem which is also located in a nearby urban locality where management activities have been a challenge. The land use and cover (LULC) Spatio-temporal changes in the Rau Forest were classified as Densely Vegetation, Slightly Vegetation, Grassland, Bare land, Built-up, and Waterbodies to evaluate qualitative and quantitative changes in this reserve through the use of GIS techniques and tools over time (1990, 2000 and 2019). Landsat imageries for the year were used to identify the Spatio-temporal changes in vegetation in the area. We found that forest encroachment has driven changes in land use and land cover and transformed parts of the Rau Forest reserve into agricultural area settlements, and grazing lands which has ultimately led to gradual forest degradation. The results demonstrate the urgent need for strong and more severe regulations concerning the protecting the forest and involving local adjacent communities as they provide an extra layer of forest protection for the benefit of present and future generations.
Downloads
References
Addae, B., & Oppelt, N. (2019). Land-use/land-cover change analysis and urban growth modelling in the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area (GAMA), Ghana. Urban Science, 3(1), 1-20
Anderson G. D. (1982). Revised edition of 1968 paper. A survey of soils and land use potential of the southern and eastern slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro, Tanzania. Resource management paper no 1. Institute of Resource Assessment, University of Dar es Salaam and International Develoment Programme, Clark University, Worcester, Massachusets USA.
Andrew, S. M., Maliondo, S. M. S., Mtika, J., Msanga, H. P., & Nsolomo, V. R. (2004). Growth performance of Azadirachta indica provenances in Morogoro, Tanzania. Journal of Tropical Forest Science,16(3), 328-335.
Brancalion, P. H. S., Garcia, L. C., Loyola, R., Rodrigues, R. R., Pillar, V. D., & Lewinsohn, T. M. (2016). A critical analysis of the Native Vegetation Protection Law of Brazil (2012): Updates and ongoing initiatives. Natureza e Conservacao, 14(1), 1–15.
Chapuis, O., Read-Thomas, G., & Bart, F. (2001). Land Use Change in West Kilimanjaro. Bordeaux 3 University, Bordeaux, France.
Child, G. S. (1965). Some notes on the mammals of Kilimanjaro. Tanganyika Notes and Records, 64, 77-89.
Cochrane, M.A., Alencar, A., Schulze, M.D., Souza, C.M., Nepstad, D.C., Lefebvre, P. and
Davidson, E.A. (1999) Positive Feedbacks in the Fire Dynamic of Closed Canopy Tropical
Forests.
Cohen, W. B., & Goward, S. N. (2004). Landsat’s role in ecological applications of remote sensing. Bioscience, 54(6), 535-545.
Esbah, H., Deniz, B., Kara, B., & Atatanir, L. (2007). Monitoring Urban development near a protected area. Urban Remote Sensing, 2(1), 1–6.
Eustace, A., Kisingo, A. W., Kahana, L. W., & Lyimo, E. H. (2015). Activity patterns of Black-and-White Colobus Monkey (Colobus guereza caudatus) in Rau Forest Reserve, Tanzania. Research & Reviews: Journal of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, 3(4), 17-24.
Foley, J. A., DeFries, R., Asner, G. P., Barford, C., Bonan, G., Carpenter, S. R., ... & Snyder, P. K. (2005). Global consequences of land use. Science, 309(5734), 570-574.
Götmark, F., Söderlundh, H., & Thorell, M. (2000). Buffer zones for forest reserves: opinions of land owners and conservation value of their forest around nature reserves in southern Sweden. Biodiversity & Conservation, 9(10), 1377-1390.
Güneralp, B., Lwasa, S., Masundire, H., Parnell, S., & Seto, K. C. (2017). Urbanisation in Africa: challenges and opportunities for conservation. Environmental research letters, 13(1), 1-8.
Hansen, A. J., Neilson, R. P., Dale, V. H., Flather, C. H., Iverson, L. R., Currie, D. J., ... & Bartlein, P. J. (2001). Global change in forests: responses of species, communities, and biomes: interactions between climate change and land use are projected to cause large shifts in biodiversity. BioScience, 51(9), 765-779.
Hedblom, M., Andersson, E., & Borgström, S. (2017). Flexible land-use and undefined governance: From threats to potentials in peri-urban landscape planning. Land Use Policy, 63, 523-527.
Hersperger, A. M., Oliveira, E., Pagliarin, S., Palka, G., Verburg, P., Bolliger, J., & Grădinaru, S. (2018). Urban land-use change: The role of strategic spatial planning. Global Environmental Change, 51(03), 32–42.
Howard, P. C., Viskanic, P., Davenport, T. R., Kigenyi, F. W., Baltzer, M., Dickinson, C. J., ... & Balmford, A. (1998). Complementarity and the use of indicator groups for reserve selection in Uganda. Nature, 394(6692), 472-475.
Kideghesho, J. R., Rija, A. A., Mwamende, K. A., & Selemani, I. S. (2013). Emerging issues and challenges in conservation of biodiversity in the rangelands of Tanzania. Nature Conservation, 6(November), 1–29.
Kilcullen, D., Mills, G., & Trott, W. (2015). Poles of prosperity or slums of despair? The future of African cities. The Brenthurst Foundation Discussion Paper, 5, 2015.
Kironde, J. L. & Ngware, S. S. A. (Ed.). (2000). Urbanising Tanzania: Issues, Initiatives, and Priorities. (1st ed.) Dar es Salaam University Press, Tanzania.
Koomen, E., & Borsboom-van Beurden, J. (Ed.). (2011). Land-use modelling in planning practice (1st ed.) Springer, Dordrecht, Netherlands.
Kolehmainen, K., & Ban, Y. (2008). Multitemporal spot images for urban land-cover change detection over Stockholm between 1986 and 2004. In Proceedings of ISPRS congress “Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences (Vol. 37).
Lawman, M. D. And Sinu, P. A. (2017). Can the Spiritual Values of Forests
Inspire Effective Conservation? BioScience. August 2017 / Vol. 67 No.
pg 688 – 690
Martin, J. L., Maris, V., & Simberloff, D. S. (2016). The need to respect nature and its limits challenges society and conservation science. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 113(22), 6105–6112.
Massawe, G. P., Marealle, W. N., Liseki, S. D., & Camerini, G. (2019). Conservation of Urban Forest in Tanzania: Community Attitudes Towards Njiro Forest, Arusha. East African Journal of Forestry and Agroforestry, 1(1), 1-12.
Mhache, Emmanuel Patroba (2019) Potentials of Forests on Nature Based Tourism in Tanzania: A Case of Rau Forest Reserve, Moshi Urban District, Kilimanjaro Region. International Conference on the Future of Tourism (ICFT). pp. 1-19. ISSN 2507-7872
Mutuga, F. (2009). The effect of urbanisation on protected areas. The impact of urban growth on a wildlife protected area: a case study of Nairobi National Park. Master of Science in Environmental Sciences, Policy & Management, Lund University, Sweden.
Mwasaga, B.C. (1991). The Natural Forest of Mount Kilimanjaro, in Newmark. The Conservation of Mount Kilimanjaro. The World Conservation Union, Nairobi.
O’Kting’ati, A. & Kessy, J. F. (1991). The Farming Systems on Mount Kilimanjaro in Newmark. The Conservation of Mount Kilimanjaro. IUCN, Gland and Cambridge.
Olson, J. F., Butt, B., Atieno, F., Maitima, J., Smucker, T. A., Muchugu, E., ... & Xu, H. (2003). Multi-scale analysis of the root causes of land use and cover change in Embu and Mbeere Districts, Kenya. LUCID Working Paper.
Oyan, T. (2000). Catchment Management on Mount Kilimanjaro. Msc Thesis, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim.
Phiri, D., & Morgenroth, J. (2017). Developments in Landsat land cover classification methods: A review. Remote Sensing, 9(9), 1–25.
Pielke Sr, R. A., Pitman, A., Niyogi, D., Mahmood, R., McAlpine, C., Hossain, F., ... & de Noblet, N. (2011). Land use/land cover changes and climate: modeling analysis and observational evidence. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 2(6), 828-850.
Pradhan, B., & Suleiman, Z. (2009). Pradhan, B., & Suleiman, Z. (2009b). Land cover mapping and spectral analysis using multi-sensor satellite data: A case study in Tioman Island, Malaysia. Journal of Geomatics, 3(2), 71–78.
Ramankutty, N., & Foley, J. A. (1999). Estimating historical changes in global land cover: Croplands from 1700 to 1992. Global biogeochemical cycles, 13(4), 997-1027.
Rockström, J., Steffen, W., K. Noone, Å. Persson, Chapin, F. S., E. F. Lambin, T. M. Lenton, M. Scheffer, C. Folke, H. J. Schellnhuber, B. Nykvist, C. A. de Wit, T. Hughes, S. van der Leeuw, H. Rodhe, S. Sörlin, P. K. Snyder, R. Costanza, U. Svedin, … J. A. Foley. (2009). A safe operation space for humanity. Nature, 461(9), 472–475.
Rodgers, W. A. (1993). The conservation of the forest resources of eastern Africa: past influences, present practices and future needs. Biogeography and ecology of the rain forests of eastern Africa. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 283-331.
Sembosi, S. J (2019). Spatial relationship between population density and land use and land cover dynamics: A case study of Magamba nature reserve, Western Usambara Mountains, Tanzania. International Journal of Engineering Applied Sciences and Technology 4(4), 2455-2143.
Seto, K. C., Woodcock, C. E., Song, C., Huang, X., Lu, J., & Kaufmann, R. K. (2002). Monitoring land-use change in the Pearl River Delta using Landsat TM. International journal of remote sensing, 23(10), 1985-2004.
Shi, G., Jiang, N., & Yao, L. (2018). Land use and cover change during the rapid economic growth period from 1990 to 2010: A case study of Shanghai. Sustainability, 10(2), 1–15.
Southgate, C., & Hulme, D. (1996). Land, water and local governance in a Kenyan wetland in dryland: the Kimana Group Ranch and its environs. Institute for Development, Policy and Management, Manchester, University of Manchester.
Tanzania Forest Conservation Group (TFCG). (2017). Tanzania’s Nature Reserve. The Arc Journal, 30,1-30
Taylor, C. M., Lambin, E. F., Stephenne, N., Harding, R. J., & Essery, R. L. (2002). The influence of land use change on climate in the Sahel. Journal of Climate, 15(24), 3615-3629.
Tekle, K. and Hedlund, L., LandCoverChangesBetween1958 and 1986 in Kalu District, Southern Wello, Ethiopia. Mountain Research and Development, 2000. 20 (1): 42-51.
Turner, B., Clark, W. C., Kates, R. W., Richards, J. F., Mathews, J. T., & Meyer, W. B. (1990). The Earth as transformed by human action: global change and regional changes in the biosphere over the past 300 years. In: The Earth as transformed by human action: global change and regional changes in the biosphere over the past 300 years. Cambridge University Press, with Clark University.
Verhulp, J., & Van Niekerk, A. (2016). Effect of inter-image spectral variation on land cover separability in heterogeneous areas. International Journal of Remote Sensing, 37(7), 1639–1657.
Xu, L., Xu, W., Jiang, C., Dai, H., Sun, Q., Cheng, K., Lee, C.-H., Zong, C., & Ma, J. (2022). Evaluating Communities’ Willingness to Participate in Ecosystem Conservation in Southeast Tibetan Nature Reserves, China. Land, 11(2), 1–18.
Yuan, F., Sawaya, K. E., Loeffelholz, B. C., & Bauer, M. E. (2005). Land cover classification and change analysis of the Twin Cities (Minnesota) Metropolitan Area by multitemporal Landsat remote sensing. Remote sensing of environment, 98(2-3), 317-328.
Copyright (c) 2022 Goodluck Massawe, Ahmed Abubakar, Solomon Sembosi, Priscilla Heita
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
