Land-use/cover changes in relation to stream dynamics in a marginal graben along the northern Ethiopian Rift Valley |
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| Authors: | Biadgilgn Demissie Jan Nyssen Paolo Billi Mitiku Haile Veerle Vaneetvelde Amaury Frankl |
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| Institution: | 1. Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, Mekelle University, Mekelle, Ethiopia;2. Department of Geography, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium;3. Department of Geography, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium;4. International Platform for Dryland Research and Education (IPDRE), Tottori University, Tottori, Japan;5. Department of Land Resource Management and Environmental Protection, Mekelle University, Mekelle, Ethiopia |
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| Abstract: | This paper investigates land-use/cover changes related to river dynamics in northern Ethiopia. Aerial photographs from 1965 to 1986, and SPOT images of 2007 and 2014 were used to extract land units. Land-use/cover changes took place in 48% of the entire landscape around the river across the last five decades. Changes related to swap accounted for 37%, whereas net changes accounted for 11%. The most systematic transitions in terms of gain were from shrubland to farmland, alluvial deposit to settlement, and alluvial deposit to active channel and settlement. Most of these transitions were related to the river dynamics and depict cyclic transitions: farmland → active channel → alluvial deposits → grassland/shrubland → farmland. Human interventions and natural vegetation succession were also very important. The study concludes that river systems have considerable impact on livelihood and need attention in land management undertakings in graben bottoms. |
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| Keywords: | Vegetation succession river land use/cover Raya graben land transition stream dynamics |
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