| dc.description.abstract | Assessment of land-use and land-cover (LULC) change of any region is one of the prominent features used in environmental resource management and its overall sustainable development. In land change sciences, land use and land cover (hereafter LULC) are two exchangeable terminologies used with different references, but often being used interchangeably. The LULC pattern of any geographical area/setting is the interplay of environmental, institutional, and socioeconomic factors and their exploitation by humans over space and time. Wetlands play crucial role in global biodiversity and provide essential support to many species and people’s livelihood across the world. Therefore this study assessed the land use and land cover patterns within and around Okole wetland in Railway division, Lira City East using remote sensing and GIS techniques and key informant interviews. Three major land uses (settlements, agriculture and intact wetland) from Landsat images of 2013, 2018 and 2023 were mapped. The results of the study demonstrated significant loss in area covered by intact wetland by 14.7% (from 0.306 to 0.2124 square kilometers) and net gain in areas covered by settlements (11.4%) and agriculture (3.3%) over the ten years period from 2013-2023. The root causes of this LULC changes were established to be rapid urbanization and population growth, expansion of agricultural land in order to grow food to feed the population and land for settlement purposes. Therefore, there is need for community awareness education about wetland importance, restoration of degraded wetland, restriction of expansion of agricultural land and provision of sustainable alternative livelihood activities like fish farming and poultry keeping to marginalized communities adjacent to the Okole wetland. | en_US |
