Lucas Boakye¹, Tekleab Gala^1,

The central Ethiopian highlands, which are attracting massive population influx from the surrounding areas, are being subjected to myriad environmental changes and impacts thereof. Hence, an in-depth understanding of the statuses, and trends of the environmental resources on the highland is critical. This study used archived remotely sensed Landsat data to produced Land Use and Land Cover maps of the highlands and changes over 32 years (1985 – 2017). The Hybrid Maximum Likelihood Algorithm and image segmentation techniques; and Land Change Modeler were deployed. Accordingly, Agricultural lands, Grass/Bare lands, Lakes/Ponds, Scrublands, Settlement/Urban areas, Vegetation areas, and Wetlands were detected and mapped. Overall mapping accuracies and kappa statistics ranged between 84% - 87.6% and 95.7% - 94.4%, respectively. Agriculture is the dominant Land Use and Land Cover type throughout, though the compositions of the remaining Land Use and Land Cover types have changed since 1985; except for Lakes/Ponds, and Wetlands. Settlement/Urban areas have grown by 546%, at the expense of agricultural lands and vegetation areas, a condition that is exposing farmers to the loss of massive cropland and woodlands. Additionally, Agricultural lands have changed into Grass/Bare lands and Scrublands, as shreds of evidence of the environmental impacts of the rapid urbanization. Therefore, with an anticipated growing population and urban expansion on the highland, it is essential to promote practices of sustainable land resource management and development in the region.

land use land cover, environmental change, change analysis and modeling, remote sensing, central Ethiopian highlands, Ethiopia