Land use land cover changes and its implication on ecotourism in hawassa city and its surroundings?
Abstract
S. Getahun* and M. Yoseph
In recent years, ecotourism has flourished and attracts ecotourists who visit the ecological, cultural, landscapes, city parks, lakes and related resources around the world. The study was conducted with the aim analyzing the dynamics of land use land cover change for the last three decades on development of ecotourism in and around Hawassa city. Four sets of remotely sensed data, TM for 1985 and 1995, ETM+ for 2005 and OLI for 2017 with a time span of thirty years were used To assess the LULC change on ecotourism potential and it was obtained and processed using Arc GIS 10.3 and ENVI 5.1. Five LULC types, namely Built up (settlement), forest, cropland, grassland and water body were identified. Results revealed that increment of built-up area by about 15.63% and decrement of water body by 18 hectare in last three decade have negatively affected ecotourism development. Hence, appropriate measures need to be employed to reduce the dramatic change in land use and to harmonize environmental conservation with human livelihood.