The socio–economic impacts of land-use and land-cover changes in lake Rukwa valley, Rukwa Region, Tanzania.

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Date

2021

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Sokoine University of Agriculture

Abstract

Lake Rukwa valley is endowed with various natural resource such as wetland, Lake Rukwa, Ilemba and, Mbizi forest reserve, Rukwa and Uwanda game reserve with abundant helium gas which has been recently discovered. Presence of these natural resource leads to a number of challenging factors which underpin sustainable management and utilization of natural resources. The objective of this study was to identify land-use cover practice and socio-economic activities, to analyse the land-cover changes (LCC) and to determine the influence of LULCC on the socio-economic activities in Lake Rukwa Valley. Random sampling was employed in this study by interviewing 30 households in each village of the four chosen villages of Ilanga, Mtowisa B, Kisa and Ilemba B. Sampling frame were drawn from village book registry, key informant, focus group discussion and interviews with governments official and village leaders. Data were collected using semi-structured questionnaire with an open-ended question while land-use and land-cover changes were determined using satellite imagery for the two epoch of 1995 to 2020 years. The imagery downloaded were analyzed using computer Arc View program with a combination of GIS programs while socio-economic data associated with LULCC were analyzed using descriptive statistics was applied to obtain frequencies and percentages, then cross-tabulation was performed, chi-square test was used to determine the significance level between the data obtained and the trend of land use and land cover changes in Lake Rukwa Valley. The results revealed that there is significant changes in land-use classes at a study area as p <0.05, therefore study concluded that there is a long term association between land-use and land-cover changes in Lake Rukwa Valley. Thus the study recommended that, there is a need of policy makers, district land planner’s to take measure in maintaining sustainable resource utilization to minimize and maintain land cover changes in Lake Rukwa Valley.

Description

Masters Dissertation

Keywords

Socio–economic impacts, Land-use, Land-cover changes, Lake Rukwa Valley, Rukwa Region, Tanzania

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