.Geospatial monitoring and Assessment of Desertification in Algezira aba Localty ,White Nile State, Sudan

المجلة: مجلة الخرطوم الزراعية

سنة النشر: 2021

تاريخ النشر: 2024-08-22

ABSTRACT: Desertification is considered the major environmental problem in Sudan and seriously affects the livelihood and food security of population. Poor land use and climatic variability are the major causes of the desertification. This study focused on mapping and assessing of the land use and land cover (LU/LC) changes as indicator to desertification processes in the El-Gezira Aba Locality. Two subset images (173/51) acquired by ETM+ and OLI/TIRS for years 2000 and 2016 were freely downloaded from global land cover facility to assess the dynamic conversion in LULC classes during this period. Standard digital image processes were performed including layer stacking, supervised image classification, area calculation, accuracy assessment and postclassification change detection. In the year 2000, the major land use/land cover classes were forest (3838 ha, 15%), open forest (2749 ha, 11%), grassland (2354 ha, 10%), rainfed mechanized agriculture (377 ha, 2%), irrigated scheme (2255 ha , 9%), fallow land (3791 ha, 15%), bareland (3938 ha, 16%), sand dunes (998 ha, 4%), water bodies (2219 ha, 9%), and urban (1794 ha , 7%). Whereas, for year 2016, they were forest (1449 ha, 5.9%), open forest land (1085 ha, 4.5%), grass land (1315 ha, 5.4%), rainfed mechanized agriculture (1914 ha, 8%), irrigated scheme (5051 ha, 20.8%), fallow land (1577 ha, 6 %), bare land (1425 ha, 5.9%), sand dunes (1165 ha, 4.8%), water bodies (3605 ha, 14%) and urban (5698 ha, 23%),. Overall classification accuracies for years 2000 and 2016 were 86.39% and 87.89%, while overall kappa statistics respectively. Change detection showed a pronounced decrease in vegetation cover (forest, open forest and grassland) for favoour agriculture or urbanization (irrigated scheme, rainfed mechanized agriculture and urban). Sand dunes increased as well as Water bodies. The most dominant desertification processes were vegetation deterioration and wind erosion. This land degradation was resulted from inappropriate agricultural activates, overgrazing and expansion of urban areas. The study recommended protection of natural resources by adoption of proper urban and land use planning in addition to use of geospatial technologies in monitoring of natural resources.