Impacts of Socio-Economic Activities on Landuse

Better understanding of the effect of anthropogenic factors on spatiotemporal changes of land use/cover and impact on diversity of vascular plants is vital to design an appropriate land use and species conservation plan. This study was conducted on 64570 ha in Godere Forest of Southwestern Ethiopia using Land Sat TM images and ground truth data. It has two mutually interrelated components with aim to study (a) Effect of Socioeconomic factors on spatial and temporal change of land use/cover (b) impact of anthropogenic factors on plant diversity. The information ofunsupervised and supervised classification of images in four time intervals (1986 1995 2006 and 2010) were used to study the effect of anthropogenic factors on spatial and temporal change of land use/cover over the years. The information of pair-wise comparison of Land Sat TM images in (1986 1995 2006 and 2010) were used to determine the rate of net and average area changes and the percent impact of socio-economic factors such cultivation plantation and settlement on land use land cover changes in three phases.