Land Use Land Cover and Change Mapping Service
Development Problem
Changes in land cover and land use in East Africa are driven by a number of factors, climate change and anthropogenic factors being the major contributors. Climatic factors contributing to land cover changes include erratic weather patterns and changing climate. Non-climatic factors contributing to the problem include conflicting policies, lack of synergies/coordination by stakeholders, laxity in enforcement of policies, under-valuation of ecosystems. Anthropogenic factors include a growing population whose demand for agricultural land is resulting in poorly planned land use changes that lead to land degradation and fragmentation. Other anthropogenic factors include uncontrolled land sub-divisions, infrastructure development, mining, charcoal burning, sedimentation, poverty, fire-wood extraction, overexploitation of forest services, and poorly coordinated changes in land tenure.
Service Objective
The main objective of this service is to develop and build capacity of institutions to develop periodic land use, land cover/feature and change maps that can effectively be utilized to influence policy decisions, or that can be integrated with other datasets in models to generate information that can inform better monitoring and management of land resources.
Stakeholders
Stakeholders affected by issues arising from land use land cover changes are government ministries and departments dealing with management of natural resources (including forestry and environment), government ministries and departments dealing with land and planning, civil society, NGO’s, international organizations, research institutions and researchers, and universities among others.
More information about this service can be found here: https://www.servirglobal.net/ServiceCatalogue/details/5bd052d451ebdcae79683375