Assessing the Extent of Historical, Current, and Future Land Use Systems in Uganda
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Date
2018
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Land
Abstract
Sustainable land use systems planning and management requires a wider understanding
of the spatial extent and detailed human-ecosystem interactions astride any landscape. This study
assessed the extent of historical, current, and future land use systems in Uganda. The specific
objectives were to (i) characterize and assess the extent of historical and current land use systems,
and (ii) project future land use systems. The land use systems were defined and classified using
spatially explicit land use/cover layers for the years 1990 and 2015, while the future prediction
(for the year 2040) was determined using land use systems datasets for both years through a Markov
chain model. This study reveals a total of 29 classes of land use systems that can be broadly categorized
as follows: three of the land use systems are agricultural, five are under bushland, four under
forest, five under grasslands, two under impediments, three under wetlands, five under woodland,
one under open water and urban settlement respectively. The highest gains in the land amongst
the land use systems were experienced in subsistence agricultural land and grasslands protected,
while the highest losses were seen in grasslands unprotected and woodland/forest with low livestock
densities. By 2040, subsistence agricultural land is likely to increase by about 1% while tropical high
forest with livestock activities is expected to decrease by 0.2%, and woodland/forest unprotected
by 0.07%. High demand for agricultural and settlement land are mainly responsible for land use
systems patchiness. This study envisages more land degradation and disasters such as landslides,
floods, droughts, and so forth to occur in the country, causing more deaths and loss of property,
if the rate at which land use systems are expanding is not closely monitored and regulated in the
near future.
Description
Keywords
Land use systems, Land change modeler, Prediction, Uganda
Citation
Mwanjalolo, M. G. J., Bernard, B., Paul, M. I., Joshua, W., Sophie, K., Cotilda, N., ... & Barbara, N. (2018). Assessing the extent of historical, current, and future land use systems in Uganda. Land, 7(4), 132. doi:10.3390/land7040132