Abstract:
The understanding of wetlands’ distribution and their level of susceptibility is important to
enhance management and conservation efforts. The study aimed to map wetlands and assess their
distribution pattern and their degradation based on the LULC by the years 2000, 2010 and 2020.
Wetland types i.e., marshes, ponds, lakes, fens, rivers, floodplains, swamps, and open water
bodies with other land use such as agriculture land, built-up and natural vegetation land were
classified and mapped using random forest algorithm in Arc Map. Multi-temporal Landsat
satellite data including thematic Mapper Landsat (+ETM) and Operational Land Imager (OLI)
images were used for LULC mapping. The random forest classifier technique is used to analyse
the satellite imagery for detecting the LULC changes during the whole study period. To assess
the wetland area degradation three aspects were used in this study for the analysis; wetland area
change rate, annual land cover change and annual land cover change rate. The study found about
-34.41Km2/y of wetlands potentially are degraded annually due to human and natural stressors in
20 years of our study however the basin experienced a higher rate of wetland degradation in the
second epoch of 2010-2020 where the basin experience -42.8Km2/y degradation which results to
the total loss of -687.75 km2 total coverage of wetland area in the basin. This information could
be used to improve wetland planning and management by wetland managers and other
stakeholders. |
