SPATIO-TEMPORAL ANALYSIS OF URBAN LAND USE AND LAND COVER CHANGE USING GEOSPATIAL TECHNIQUES IN HOSSANA TOWN, ETHIOPIA

Urban expansion is widespread in most developing countries while the nearby farmland area coverage is shrinking which in turn attracting the attention of many actors to manage the encroachment scientifically. This study aims to analyze the urban land use and land cover change in Hossana town using geospatial techniques. Three Landsat images were used and analyzed using ArcMap 10.5. The images were classified and reclassified into six land use classes. The result showed visible land cover change and a high rate of town expansion in the study area. The forest area surrounding the town and bareland decreased from 5702 (48.8 %) to 1515 ha (12.97 %) and from 2224.3 ha (19.1%) to 226.2 ha (1.94 %) from 1986 to 2019 whereas farmland and built-up areas increased rapidly from 3078 ha (26.4%) to 5599.5 ha (47.95%) and from 141.1 (1.2%) to 3581.4 ha (30.67%) in the study period, respectively. Thus, the land cover change result for the built-up area has eventually expanded through the study period. In contrary, the land cover under forest, water, bareland, open area (greenery) and farmland have shown tremendous decrease within the last three decades, respectively. The expansion of farmland and settlement areas implies high population inflow to the urban area from the rural and fringe areas. Thus, the settlement pattern and land use shall be governed by well-planned policies to manage rapid population growth and migration from rural areas which causes poor land management and illegal housing. The application of geospatial techniques are mandatory tools to analyze the spatio-temporal changes in urban areas.