The impact of refugee settlements on land use changes and vegetation degradation in West Nile Sub-region, Uganda
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Date
2020
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Geocarto International
Abstract
Uganda continues to experience high-refugee population influx
that is beyond the established settlement capacities. Little information
is available on the present and future impacts of settling
refugees and host-communities on landuse changes and vegetation
degradation. This study used Sentinel-2 images (20m) of
2016-2019 and Dinamica Ego-software to determine the current
and future spatial areal-extent of changes in 2022. Findings
revealed a rarefied increase in areas under subsistence-farming,
builtups and refugee-settlements while the losses were seen in
savannah-grasslands, wetlands and woodlands. In 2021, the most
significant increases in the land will be experienced in builtupareas,
settlements and commercial farming. The most degraded
vegetation types were savannah-grassland, woodlands and treeplantations.
These were primarily attributed to unending activities
of deforestation, bush-burning, high-refugee population, land-conflicts
with host-communities and wetland reclamation. Thus,
unless sustainable farming and energy-saving practices are promoted
and adopted, the landscape is likely to remain not even
with remnants of green-cover.
Description
Keywords
Refugees, Land use changes, Vegetation degradation, Dinamica Ego, Uganda
Citation
Barasa Bernard , Mwiru Aron , Turyabanawe Loy , Nabalegwa W. Muhamud & Ssentongo Benard (2020): The impact of refugee settlements on land use changes and vegetation degradation in West Nile Sub-region, Uganda, Geocarto International, DOI: 10.1080/10106049.2019.1704073