Evaluations of Land Use/Land Cover Changes and Land Degradation in Dera District, Ethiopia: GIS and Remote Sensing Based Analysis

Evaluation of land use/land cover changes and land degradation in Dera District, Ethiopia were undertaken using two remotely sensed datasets (Landsat 5 TM of 1985 and Landsat 7 ETM + imagery 2011). Land use/land cover change detection and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index analysis was carried out on the two images. Global positioning system and topographical maps of scale 1:50,000 for ground verification and ERDAS Imagine 9.1 and ArcGIS 9.2 software for satellite image processing and analysis were used for the study. Field observations and focus group discussions were also conducted to obtain addition information. The result of this study showed that cultivated and degraded lands were increased by 25.79% and 398% respectively at the expense of forest, shrub and grazing lands. Normalized Difference Vegetation Index analysis has also indicated the increased of land degradation between 1985 and 2011 images which mainly aggravated by land use/land cover changes.