Analysis of spatio-temporal dynamics of land use and cover changes in Western Kenya

The western region of Kenya is experiencing remarkable land changes resulting from population growth and related impacts. The study used remote sensing and GIS techniques to analyze the land use/cover changes in the years 1995, 2001, 2010 and 2017. Multi-spectral Landsat (TM, ETM + and OLI) images were pre-processed and classified using maximum likelihood algorithm in ENVI version 5.4. The overall classification accuracies in all the images were more than 80%. The results revealed major conversions of each land use/land cover type in varying trends and magnitudes. Between 1995 and 2001, there was an increase in built-up areas by 71%, forest cover by 43%, farms by 5%; and decrease in grassland by 47%. By 2017, the built-up areas had increased by 225% and farms by 17%; the forestland, grassland and water reduced by 38, 10 and 11%, respectively. The observed changes are characterized by increased settlements and encroachment of sensitive ecosystems.