Impacts of the Surrounding Land use Land Cover Change and Community perception on Suba Sabeta Forest, Ethiopia

Abstract

Land use change is one of the challenges that aggravate environmental problems. Understanding the scope of land use change, driving forces, and consequences is very crucial for proper management of land resources like forests. Suba Forest is one of the remnants natural forests in central high land of Ethiopia and has been supporting the local community for construction, energy and household furniture. Currently, Suba forests influenced by land use land cover change and have been declining at an alarming rate. Detecting land use land cover change and understanding the driving forces is important for supporting decision making processes. This study assessed Impacts of the Surrounding Land use Land Cover Change and Community perception on Suba forest over the past three decade i.e. from 1990 to 2020. Landsat images of 1990, 2005 and 2020 analyses, household interviews and focus group discussions were used. While forests declined at alarming rate from 9,220 ha to 2702 ha also 78.6 % of HH agree about the change and Shrub from 1335 to 783ha; settlement increased from 866 ha to 5,589 ha and bare land from 273 to 3,978 over all the study period. Cultivated land increased from 12,162 ha in 1990 to 14,329 ha in 2005 but generally declined during the study period from 12162ha in 1990 to 10,811ha in 2020. According to socio economic survey assessment fuel wood collections, settlement (urban expansion), cultivated land expansion, cutting trees for construction were the major drivers of the change reported. Decreases of agricultural production, removal of indigenous plants (biodiversity lose) water erosion were the most perceived impacts of the changes mentioned by households. Most of the households have a holistic understanding of forest cover change. Strengthening of forest protection, increase alternative energy use, planting (reforestation) were mentioned as possible solutions to the current state of deforestation.