The Impacts of Climate Change on Land Use/Land Cover in Kembata Tembaro Zone, Southern Ethiopia

Abstract

Climate change is one of the major challenges of our time, disproportionately affecting the livelihoods of smallholder farmers, creating considerable stress to the human and natural system. The impact of climate change on smallholder farmers’ land use/land cover change is multidimensional and complex in nature. This work assessed the impact of climate change on land use and land cover of smallholder farmers in Kembata Tembaro zone of Southern Ethiopia based on Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus and Thematic Mapper Landsat images taken in 1984, 2000 and 2017. The results showed that there has been a dynamics of Land Use Land Cover changes between 1984 and 2017. Cropland was commonly dominant land use land cover type occurred in increasing trend in all livelihood zones, while forestland has shown a decreasing trend in Cereal and Enset livelihood zone, Ginger livelihood zone and Coffee livelihood zone. Accordingly, impact of climate change on land use land cover across different livelihood zones show variations in adopting new crop types, extinction of few crops, and changes in land allocation decision among smallholder farmers. Thus, efforts are needed to manage the impact of climate change on land use land cover taking into account of local level geographic, agronomic and overall livelihood systems through well integrated landscape planning to ensure sustainable land management practices.